Using RADIUS Server with PMP 450

This post explains what all can be done with RADIUS server in PMP subsystem.RADIUS can be used to authenticate SM, management users and apply configuration on the Canopy radios.

Supported RADIUS servers

Following RADIUS servers are supported by Canopy software.

  • freeradius
  • ARADIAL
  • Microsoft NPS (Software Release 13.4 onward), setup guide here.
  • Cisco ACS (Software Release 13.4.1 onward), setup guide here.

Configuring SM for Authentication

If authentication is set to RADIUS AAA, every SM will be registered to AP only after RADIUS authentication is successful.

Config to be done on AP

  • Enable RADIUS AAA from Security
  • Authentication Server IP and sharedsecret.A maximum of 3 RADIUS server can be configured to use.This can provide load balancing or fallback mechanism in case other serverrs are unreachable. Check Session Status List  , Configuration tab to find which SM is authenticated by which RADIUS server.

Configuration to be done on SM

  • Select EAP method to be used, we support PEAP-MSCHAPv2 , TTLS-MSCHAPv2, TTLS-PAP, EAP-MSCHPAv2
  • Enter username, password , this has to be same what is configured in RADIUS users database (for example users.conf file if you are using freeradius)
  • Configure the security certificate. Note that Canopy radio verifies certificate sent from RADIUS server , so make sure it is configured same as on both SM and AP.

Tip: Authentication mode is governed by AP.Any SM (except a SM that itself has been configured to require RADIUS authentication by enabling Enforce Authentication as described below) is allowed to register to the AP.Its advisablle to keep SM setting as disabled.

Tip:

Their can be argument on why one has to touch each and every SM to get it authenticated, which can be a tiring job.

Following approach can be used.

  • If AP is configured for RADIUS AAA authentication , out-of-box SM without any configuration will try to do RADIUS auth and may not be successful for various reason like default certificate or default username/password didnt match. In this case  one can optionally Enable this configuration to bypass authentication for ICC SM. Under Configuration-> Security -> Authnetication Server Settings -> Disable Authentication for SM connected via ICC , set this to Enable.
  • Now out-of-box SM (which are ICC enabled) can onboard with AP. After this SM will tries to go for Zero touch configuration and get configuration file download URL from DHCP option 66. Note: This requires a DHCP server with option 66 enabled and set to value of download url like tftp or ftp.To make option 66 URL generic and work for all SM's keep it something like this tftp://mycompany.com/ ,SM will automatically append mac address and will actually fetch tftp://mycompany.com/0a0b0c0d0e0f.cfg
  • SM will fetch configuration file using the download URL. Now in FTP/TFTP server , a per SM configuration file can be created. Configuration file name should be of format 0a0b0c0d0e0f.cfg. In this configuration file you can set desired color code, radio parameters, RADIUS authentication credentials.

So once configuration is applied and SM reboot, it will go for RADIUA Auth and get authenticated sucessfully.

Web User Authentication

RADIUS server can be used to authentication management users.

To use this feature, enable Authentication Mode to be Remote or Remote then Local  on AP or SM.

Presently EAP-MD5 is the only EAP method we support, so make sure the same is available on your RADIUS server. In future software release we will be supporting more stronger authentication methods.

You can optionally configured 'Allow Local Login after Reject from AAA' to be Enabled, this will make sure you have acess in case RADIUS server is down.

Note: If RADIUS server is unreachable authentication will fallback to Local regardless of configuration.

Note: Cambium VSA Cambium-Canopy-UserLevel must be present in RADIUS server user configuration otherwise the authentication will fail. This VSA can be set to following valid values TECH(1), INSTALL (2), ADMIN (3).

Additionally administrator can add another VSA which control Cambium-Canopy-UserMode , which control whether the radio user will be Read-Only (1) or Read-Write(0). By default logged users will be Read-Write mode.

Accounting

Accounting messages can be enabled for RADIUS  authenticated SM and users.We support two type of accounting

dataUsage: This is per SM based and can be enabled on AP only. Accounting messages will be sent periodic based on configuration of Accounting Interval (0=Disabled,min-30,max-10080).

A sample Accounting message will look like

        User-Name = "anonymous" [outer identity see Tip section on how to get SM inner identitiy username]
        NAS-Port = 2
        NAS-Port-Type = Wireless-Other
        NAS-IP-Address = 10.110.61.2
        Calling-Station-Id = "0A-0B-0C-0D-0E-0F"
        Acct-Authentic = RADIUS
        Connect-Info = "65000/65000/8X/2X"
        Acct-Session-Id = "0a0b0c0d0e0f10000020A-0B-0C-0D-0E-0F"
        Acct-Input-Octets = 44571
        Acct-Output-Octets = 18925
        Acct-Input-Packets = 378
        Acct-Output-Packets = 122
        Acct-Input-Gigawords = 0
        Acct-Output-Gigawords = 0
        Acct-Session-Time = 5760
        Acct-Status-Type = Interim-Update [ Other status type are Start/Stop/NAS-Reboot/Device-Reboot]

Tip:

As you see above username contains outer identity , if you configure your RADIUS server to copy inner tunnel attributes to outer tunnel , in that case this username will be SM inner-identity username.

deviceAccess: This Accounting message is when a user logged in to web management interface and RADIUS is enabled.These message will be only sent for login or logoff.

This configuration can be enabled for  both AP and SM.It helps keep track of who is logging to management interface of Canopy radios.

Framed IP

 For SM authentication, once it is authenticated by RADIUS server VSA can be set to configured management interface LAN 1 network configuiration parameters.

Note: IP address, netmask and gateway all must be present together for network setting to take affect on SM.

Framed-IP-Address = 10.110.61.69,
Framed-IP-Netmask = 255.255.255.0,
Cambium-Canopy-Gateway = 10.110.61.254, This is Cambium Vendor VSA , Please refer dictionary file for details.

SM QoS parameters

Following VSA can be to configure the SM Link

Cambium-Canopy-LPULCIR           #Low Priority uplink CIR
Cambium-Canopy-LPDLCIR           #Low Priority downlink CIR
Cambium-Canopy-HPULCIR          #High Priority uplink CIR
Cambium-Canopy-HPDLCIR          #High Priority downlink CIR
Cambium-Canopy-HPENABLE      #High Priority Enable                   
Cambium-Canopy-ULBR                #Uplink Bit Rate/Sustained Uplink Rate
Cambium-Canopy-ULBL                 #Uplink Bit Limit/Uplink Burst Allocation
Cambium-Canopy-DLBR                #Downlink Bit Rate/Sustained Downlink Rate
Cambium-Canopy-DLBL                 #Downlink Bit Limit/Downlink Burst Allocation
Cambium-Canopy-BCASTMIR       #Broadcast Traffic Maximum Information Rate
Cambium-Canopy-ULMB               #Max Burst Uplink Rate
Cambium-Canopy-DLMB               #Max Burst Downlink Rate
Cambium-Canopy-BCASTMIRUNITS   #Broadcast Traffic Maximum Information Rate in PPS Units (max 65535)

VLAN

SM Vlan settings can be pushed from RADIUS server too, these following VSA helps in doing that.

Cambium-Canopy-VLLEARNEN   #VLAN Learning Enable
Cambium-Canopy-VLFRAMES     #VLAN Frames Types allowed - all/Tag/Untagged
Cambium-Canopy-VLIDSET          #VLAN Membership  (1-4094)
Cambium-Canopy-VLAGETO        #VLAN Age Timeout
Cambium-Canopy-VLIGVID          #VLAN Ingress VLAN ID
Cambium-Canopy-VLMGVID       #VLAN Management VLAN ID

Config File Import Export

 For ease of installation and use , all the SM confoguration can be packed into a confoguration file and its placed under a ftp or tftp server. URL of the file can be stated in these VSA. After SM comes into SM , if this VSA is present, SM will try to fetch the configuration file and apply to SM.

Cambium-Canopy-ConfigFileImportUrl    #Config File Import URL
Cambium-Canopy-ConfigFileExportUrl     #Config File Export URL

Change of Authorization and Disconect Message

Canopy software support RFC 3576 which basically allows adimistrators to control configuration parameters in the SM while it is in session.This feature has to be enabled Configuration -> Security of AP under before using it.

Change of Authorization

This allows an administrator to control these configuration parameters in the SM while it is in session.A typical use case could be changing the QOS parameters after a certain amount of bandwidth usage by an SM.

Disconnect Message:

To disconnect a registered SM from AP, adimistator can now send a Disconnect message containing following parameters , on CoA port from RADIUS server to AP.

Event-Timestamp=1445935920
User-Name=0a-00-3e-ab-cd-ef  [Mac address of registered SM]

 Refer this page for more details.

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