Enhancements in Release F.04.08

Configuring RADIUS Authentication and Accounting

Outline of the Steps for Configuring RADIUS Authentication

There are three main steps to configuring RADIUS authentication:

1.Configure RADIUS authentication for controlling access through one or more of the following

Serial port

Telnet

SSH

Port-Access (802.1X)

2.Configure the switch for accessing one or more RADIUS servers (one primary server and up to two backup servers):

Note

This step assumes you have already configured the RADIUS server(s) to support the switch. Refer to the documentation provided with the RADIUS server documentation.)

Server IP address

(Optional) UDP destination port for authentication requests (default: 1812; recom- mended)

(Optional) UDP destination port for accounting requests (default: 1813; recommended)

(Optional) encryption key for use during authentication sessions with a RADIUS server. This key overrides the global encryption key you can also configure on the switch, and must match the encryption key used on the specified RADIUS server. (Default: null)

3.Configure the global RADIUS parameters.

Server Key: This key must match the encryption key used on the RADIUS servers the switch contacts for authentication and accounting services unless you configure one or more per-server keys. (Default: null.)

Timeout Period: The timeout period the switch waits for a RADIUS server to reply.

(Default: 5 seconds; range: 1 to 15 seconds.)

Retransmit Attempts: The number of retries when there is no server response to a

RADIUS authentication request. (Default: 3; range of 1 to 5.)

Server Dead-Time:The period during which the switch will not send new authentica- tion requests to a RADIUS server that has failed to respond to a previous request. This avoids a wait for a request to time out on a server that is unavailable. If you want to use this feature, select a dead-time period of 1 to 1440 minutes. (Default: 0—disabled; range: 1 - 1440 minutes.) If your first-choice server was initially unavailable, but then becomes available before the dead-time expires, you can nullify the dead-time by resetting it to

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