Radius Change Of Authorization - Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Security Configuration Manual

Configuring RADIUS
Related Topics
Prerequisites for Configuring RADIUS, on page 57

RADIUS Change of Authorization

The RADIUS Change of Authorization (CoA) provides a mechanism to change the attributes of an
authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) session after it is authenticated. When a policy changes
for a user or user group in AAA, administrators can send RADIUS CoA packets from the AAA server such
as a Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS) to reinitialize authentication and apply the new policy. This
section provides an overview of the RADIUS interface including available primitives and how they are used
during a CoA.
• Change-of-Authorization Requests
• CoA Request Response Code
• CoA Request Commands
• Session Reauthentication
• Stacking Guidelines for Session Termination
A standard RADIUS interface is typically used in a pulled model where the request originates from a network
attached device and the response come from the queried servers. Catalyst switches support the RADIUS CoA
extensions defined in RFC 5176 that are typically used in a pushed model and allow for the dynamic
reconfiguring of sessions from external AAA or policy servers.
The switch supports these per-session CoA requests:
• Session reauthentication
• Session termination
• Session termination with port shutdown
• Session termination with port bounce
This feature is integrated with Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS) 5.1.
The RADIUS interface is enabled by default on Catalyst switches. However, some basic configuration is
required for the following attributes:
• Security and Password—refer to the "Preventing Unauthorized Access to Your Switch" section in this
• Accounting—refer to the "Starting RADIUS Accounting" section in the Configuring Switch-Based
Cisco IOS software supports the RADIUS CoA extensions defined in RFC 5176 that are typically used in a
push model to allow the dynamic reconfiguring of sessions from external AAA or policy servers. Per-session
CoA requests are supported for session identification, session termination, host reauthentication, port shutdown,
and port bounce. This model comprises one request (CoA-Request) and two possible response codes:
• CoA acknowledgement (ACK) [CoA-ACK]
• CoA nonacknowledgement (NAK) [CoA-NAK]
OL-29048-01
guide.
Authentication chapter in this guide.
Catalyst 2960-X Switch Security Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS Release 15.0(2)EX
RADIUS Change of Authorization
61