Softpanorama

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Home Switchboard Unix Administration Red Hat TCP/IP Networks Neoliberalism Toxic Managers
(slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and  bastardization of classic Unix

TACACS

News Recommended Books Recommended Links Recommended Articles Humor Etc
hping2 Firewalk        

TACACS, which is as acronym for Terminal Access Controller by Cisco Systems. Tacacs, allow a network access server (NAS, for example a Cisco 2511 or a 5300) to offload the user administation to a central server.

At my place of employment, for TACACS authentication of dial-up Internet users (who are connecting to our modem pool which are in turn connected to a couple of Cisco 250x access servers), we are using the Vikas version of "xtacacsd".

After compiling and installing the Vikas package (latest versions are available from ftp://ftp.navya.com/pub/vikas; I don't believe the package is available in RPM format), you should add the following entries to the ``/etc/inetd.conf'' file so that the daemon will be loaded by the inetd daemon whenever a TACACS request is received.

# TACACS is a user authentication protocol used for Cisco Router products.
tacacs dgram udp wait root /etc/xtacacsd xtacacsd -c /etc/xtacacsd-conf

Next, you should edit the ``/etc/xtacacsd-conf'' file and customize it, as necessary, for your system (however you will probably be able to use the default settings as-is).

Note: Note: If you are using shadow passwords (see Section 6.6 for details), you will have some problems with this package. Unfortunately, PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module), which Red Hat uses for user authentication, is not supported by this package. One workaround that I use is to keep a separate ``passwd'' file in ``/usr/local/xtacacs/etc/'' which matches the one in /etc/ but is non-shadowed. This is a bit of a hassle, and if you choose to do this make sure you set permissions on the other password file to make sure it is only readable by root:

chmod a-wr,u+r /usr/local/xtacacs/etc/passwd

If you do indeed use shadow, you will most certainly need to edit the ``/etc/xtacacsd-conf'' file and location of the non-shadowed password file (assuming you are using the workaround I have suggested above).

The next step is to configure your access server(s) to authenticate logins for the desired devices (such as dial-up modems) with TACACS. Here is a sample session on how this is done:

mail:/tftpboot# telnet xyzrouter

Escape character is '^]'.
User Access Verification
Password: ****
xyzrouter> enable
Password: ****
xyzrouter# config terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server attempts 3
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server authenticate connections
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server extended
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server host 123.12.41.41
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server notify connections
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server notify enable
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server notify logouts
xyzrouter(config)# tacacs-server notify slip
xyzrouter(config)# line 2 10
xyzrouter(config-line)# login tacacs
xyzrouter(config-line)# exit
xyzrouter(config)# exit
xyzrouter# write
Building configuration...
[OK]  
xyzrouter# exit

Connection closed by foreign host.

All TACACS activity log messages will be recorded in ``/var/log/messages'' for your perusal.

NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

An Analysis of the TACACS+ Protocol and its Implementations

tac_plus 4.0 (TACACS+) and autoconf

RPM Search wikid-tac_plus-2.0_HEAD-1.noarch.rpm

An Analysis of the TACACS+ Protocol and its Implementations

fedora-core

Router Expert- Building a secure TACACS+ environment

Tacacs Server Configuration in Debian - tacacs+

Tacas server configuration in Linux. - ITtoolbox Groups

Configuration of TACAS Server in Redhat linux or FC-2or3 ...

Build a RADIUS server on Linux

tacacs PAM

Recommended Links

Google matched content

Softpanorama Recommended

Top articles

Sites

TACACS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tacacs+ v9devrim
Tacacs+ Attribute-Value Pairs(PDF) Cisco System
Configuring Authentication(PDF) Cisco System
Configuring Authorization(PDF) Cisco System
Configuring Accounting(PDF) Cisco System
Troubleshooting TACACS+ and Recovering Passwords(PDF version)Cisco System
What is tacacs v8 Feature by devrim
Database Authentication and Accounting with Tacacs+ by devrim
Tacacs+ For Newbies by devrim
Tacacs+ Installation by devrim
Cisco Developer version Tacacs+ User Guide (text version)
TACACS+ Peter J. Welcher Chesapeake Computer Consultants
Configuring Tacacs+ and Xtacacs(From Cisco Systems) Pdf file
Tacacs,Xtacacs and tacacs+ commands(From Cisco Systems) Pdf file
Tacacs+ and RADIUS Comparison (From Cisco System) Html file
TACACS+ for First-time Users Html
TACACS+ Dial-Up Sample Config Html
Configuring Network Access Security PDF

Recommended Books

Securing and Controlling Cisco Routers - Google Book Search

Mastering Red Hat Linux 9 Books



Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


Copyright © 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.

FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.

This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...

You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site

Disclaimer:

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last updated: March 12, 2019