PLANET WGSW-52040 - Manual (Page 395)

Chapter 47 RADIUS Configuration
47.1 Introduction to RADIUS
47.1.1 AAA and RADIUS Introduction
AAA is short for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting, it provide a consistency
framework for the network management safely. According to the three functions of
Authentication, Authorization, Accounting, the framework can meet the access control for the
security network: which one can visit the network device, which access-level the user can have
and the accounting for the network resource.
RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial in User Service), is a kind of distributed and client/server
protocol for information exchange. The RADIUS client is usually used on network appliance to
implement AAA in cooperation with 802.1x protocol. The RADIUS server maintains the
database for AAA, and communicates with the RADIUS client through RADIUS protocol. The
RADIUS protocol is the most common used protocol in the AAA framework.
47.1.2 Message structure for RADIUS
The RADIUS protocol uses UDP to deliver protocol packets. The packet format is shown as
below.
Figure 47-1: Message structure for RADIUS
47-174