From: jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca   
      
   Marc Bissonnette wrote:   
   > I hope you'll pardon what is probably a pretty simple question, but I'm   
   > really not a hardware dude;   
      
   But radius is software :-)   
      
   > I often see mentions of Radius servers in the ISP world, either used purely   
   > for their own needs and sometimes, in conjunction with interconnection with   
   > an upstream like Bell - I'm just curious: What's the main function/benefit   
   > of these ?   
      
   Radius has 2 functions: authentication and logging.   
      
   PPP and PPPoE as well as routers that use authentication (wi-fi for   
   instance)  support the radius protocol for authentication.   
      
   Radius is a distributed protocol which means that if you are an istop   
   customer and use dialup to access a modem operated by VIF in montreal,   
   the VIF radius server will forward your PPP authentication request to   
   ISTOP's radius server.   
      
   In PPPoE world for Bell, it is done differently with the BAS router   
   taking a peek at the PPPoE aythentication request to see to whom it   
   belongs and then just forwarding the authentication request to the ISP.   
   The ISP is free to authenticate as it wishes.   
      
   Radius is also used to centrally collect logs from routers and other   
   devices. This includes PPP and PPPoE session start/stop so that an ISP's   
   router will send out accounting details to a radius server which then   
   forwards them to the ISP's accounting software.   
      
   So when you end your PPPoE session, your usage data gets sent to a   
   radius server by the router and then the radius writes the data to a log   
   that is used by the accounting software.   
      
   Authentication databases are generally LDAP based these days, so radius   
   servers that need to process authentication will send LDAP requests to   
   the central LDAP server. That server is also used to authenticate   
   POP/IMAP, FTP, web etc.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)