Home > Storage > PowerScale (Isilon) > Product Documentation > Management and Migration > PowerScale OneFS Authentication, Identity Management, and Authorization > Authentication
Authentication refers to confirming an identity. Upon login, a user states an identity, and the authentication process ensures that the user is associated with the presented identity through a password. The authentication process takes place through providers such as Active Directory or MIT KDC. OneFS also offers a local provider, where users are manually added to OneFS but are only available on the local cluster. Another local option is file provider, where a file is uploaded with user information and could also contain UNIX user and group information from other systems. The same file could be uploaded to other clusters, but the file must be manually updated on each cluster.