Wireless/Redundant Edge Services xl Module Management and Configuration Guide WS.02.xx and greater

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RADIUS Server
Overview
Overview
A Remote Access Dial In User Service (RADIUS) server provides centralized
authentication (and sometimes accounting) for a network. The RADIUS
protocol regulates communications between network access servers (NASs)
and RADIUS servers.
The NASs are devices such as switches and Wireless Edge Services xl Modules,
which provide network access to stations. First, however, they can force the
stations to authenticate themselves.
Although the NAS enforces authentication, it does not decide whether a
particular station is authenticated. Instead it submits an authentication
request for the station to the RADIUS server. The RADIUS server decides
whether a station can connect to the network according to the user’s
credentials and the policies configured on the server.
The Wireless Edge Services xl Module acts as a NAS when it enforces 802.1X,
Web authentication (Web-Auth), or MAC authentication. In addition to
forwarding authentication requests to an external RADIUS server, the module
can make decisions with its internal server. In this second case, the module
acts as the NAS and as the RADIUS server.
You learned about configuring settings for an external RADIUS server in
Chapter 4: Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). In this chapter, you will
learn how to configure the module’s internal RADIUS server.
The Wireless Edge Services xl Module’s internal RADIUS server can provide
the following services:
■ authenticating users who attempt to connect to a wireless LAN (WLAN)
that requires authentication to a RADIUS server
■ responding to authentication requests from network access servers
(NASs) in the wired network
■ creating accounting logs of user activity on a WLAN