Radius stands for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service. The protocol was created by Livingston Enterprises, a network solution provider, in 1991. The protocol is an industrial standard used by leading manufacturers of network products. The Internet Development Working Group adopted the Radius protocol as a draft standard in 2000, which is described in RFC 2865.
Using the Protocol
Radius is used for remote access in various types of networks, including wireless networks, Ethernet and other types of remote user access over the Internet.
The Radius protocol allows a company to store user profiles in a central database that all remote servers have access to. The central database facilitates the maintenance of network statistics and provides better security, allowing the company to establish a managed network point policy.
How does Radius Authentication Work?
The Radius protocol provides centralized authentication services to servers, through which remote users connect to the network. In the Radius protocol, remote network users connect to their networks through a network access server (NAS), which requests the authentication server to obtain authorization and configuration data of the remote client.