Wierd PortMaster Glitch

Charles Scott (cscott@freeway.net)
Mon, 6 Nov 1995 17:30:48 -0500 (EST)

Brian:
I don't know if this is at all related to the other glitches we've had
reports on in receint weeks, but it sure was strange.
Our PortMaster at our NOC stopped authenticating this afternoon. We
were getting login failed messages to our loghost but the RADIUS server
was apparently not getting any of the requests. (standard 30 second
timeout or whatever at the PortMaster) This is a v 3.1.4.
When I was informed that this was happening, I checked if I could talk
to the PortMaster from the RADIUS host and that worked fine--pings,
telnet, no problem. It appeared to me that the RADIUS server was not
receiving the authentication requests from the PM, so I checked "show
global" and looked at the "RADIUS Server:" value. It was correct. On a
lark, I entered the "set authentic ..." command using the same value I
always have and, bing, it started working again. The following is
clipped right from the session.

From "sh gl" while it was still not working.

RADIUS Server: freeway

When I entered the "set authentic..." command I received (I entered the
IP address)

Authentication Server changed from freeway to freeway

And then I entered the "sh gl" command again and it showed...

RADIUS Server: freeway

That sure looks like it had the correct information, that I gave it the
same information again, and that it then had exactly what it did before I
started. Is there some "resetting" that takes place when you enter that
command which might have cleared something?
The only other thing I should note is that there was a PM Console
(current release for Windows) session started from my system where I was
working at home at the time. It had been on for a bit without me doing
much with it, just showing the default window with all the little
terminals and star thingies on it.
Wierd?

Chuck Scott, Pres.
Freeway, Inc.
cscott@freeway.net