!!! Overview
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Usually, [TLS] uses [Public Key] [certificates] [TLS] or [Kerberos] [KERB] for [authentication].  This document describes how to use [Symmetric Keys] (later called [pre-shared keys|Symmetric Keys] or PSKs), shared in advance among the communicating parties, to establish a TLS connection.

There are basically two reasons why one might want to do this:
* using pre-shared keys can, depending on the [Cipher Suite], avoid the need for [Public Key] operations.  This is useful if [TLS] is used in performance-constrained environments with limited CPU power.
* [pre-shared keys|Symmetric Keys] may be more convenient from a key management point of view.  For instance, in closed environments where the connections are mostly configured manually in advance, it may be easier to configure a PSK than to use certificates. Another case is when the parties already have a mechanism for setting up a shared secret key, and that mechanism could be used to "bootstrap" a key for authenticating a TLS connection.

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