Perle Systems SCS8C DC User Manual

Page of 460
IOLAN SDS/SCS/STS/MDC User’s Guide, Version 4.1
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Introduction
The 
Security
 group includes the following configuration options:
z
Authentication—When a serial port is configured for the 
Console Management or TCP Sockets profile, the user can be 
authenticated either locally in the IOLAN user profile or 
externally. This option configures the external authentication 
server. See
 for more information.
z
SSH—This configuration window configures the SSH server in 
the IOLAN. See 
 for more information.
z
SSL/TLS—This configuration window configures global 
SSL/TLS settings, which can be overridden on the serial port 
level. See 
 for more information.
z
VPN—This configuration window configures the Virtual Personal Network (VPN) IPsec and 
L2TP/IPsec tunnel parameters. See 
 for more information.
z
HTTP Tunnel—This configuration window configures the Http Tunneling parameters. See 
 for more information.
z
Services—This configuration window is used to enable/disabled client and daemon services that 
run in the IOLAN. See 
 for more information.
Authentication
Authentication can be handled by the IOLAN or through an external authentication server. 
Authentication is different from authorization, which can restrict a user’s access to the network 
(although this can be done through the concept of creating sessions for a user, see 
for 
more information). Authentication ensures that the user is defined within the authentication 
database—with the exception of using the 
Guest
 authentication option under 
Local Authentication
which can accept any user ID as long as the user knows the configured password.
For external authentication, the IOLAN supports RADIUS, Kerberos, LDAP/Microsoft Active 
Directory, TACACS+, SecurID, and NIS. You can specify a primary authentication method and a 
secondary authentication method. If the primary authentication method fails (cannot connect to the 
server or authentication fails), the secondary authentication method is tried (unless you enable the 
Only Use as backup
 option, in which case the secondary authentication method will be tried only 
when the IOLAN cannot communicate with the primary authentication host). This allows you to 
specify two different authentication methods. If you do specify two different authentication methods, 
the user will be prompted for his/her username once, but will be prompted for a password for each 
authentication method tried. For example, user Alfred’s user ID is maintained in the secondary 
authentication database, therefore, he will be prompted for his password twice, because he is not in 
the primary authentication database.Unlike the other external authentication methods, RADIUS and 
TACACS+ can also send back 
Serial Port
 and 
User
 parameters that are used for the duration of the 
Configuring Security
Chapter 9
9