VitalAAA 5.2.9 Release Notes

Last revised: April 3, 2008

Product Name Change

The NavisRadius product has been rebranded as VitalAAA. It will be also referred to as 8950 AAA in the future.

Java Version

VitalAAA requires Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) version 5.0 (also known as version 1.5.0) or later to run on all platforms. Both the J2SE JDK and the JRE are supported. Please see http://java.sun.com to get the latest version of Java.

64-bit Operating Systems

Several of the supported operating systems have 64-bit versions. Currently, VitalAAA is not supported on 64-bit operating systems. There has been some initial testing with 64-bit operating systems and the following issues are known:

• GetPWNam does not work on Unix systems.
• Kill does not work.
• NT Authentication does not work.

Contents

These release notes are intended for VitalAAA 5 programmers and administrators. They cover the following information:

• New Product Features
• Diameter Implementation Limitations
• StateServer (USS) Changes
• Changes to accommodate addition of the TACACS+ protocol
• Changes to AuthLocal plug-in to support MS-CHAPv2 with user names with realms

These release notes supercede all other included documentation for the VitalAAA product. Further information can be found at http://www.vitalaaa.com/.

New Product Features

VitalAAA 5.2.6 includes the following features:

• A reverse modifier was added to mapping language which revereses characters in a value.
• New WiMAX attributes as defined in WiMAXForum NGW 1.1.2 Stage 3 specification were added to dictionary.
• Location authorizaton checking based on WiMAX-BS-ID was added to Evolium W3 sample.

VitalAAA 5.2.3 includes the following features:

• ReadColumnarText, ReadDelimitedText, Compare, and Branch plug-ins: Add prefixOf, suffixOf, and within operators to compare operations.
• TACACS+ now decodes message arguments into separately named variables named TACACSPLUS-Arg-<name>.

VitalAAA 5.2.2 includes the following features:

• Suse Linux (x86) is now a supported platform.

VitalAAA 5.2.1 includes the following features:

• Add experimental plug-in AuthEapFast (RFC 4851).
• Various code optimizations to support better scaling on multi-CPU/ multi-Core system.
• The ServerManagementTool has restored dictionary editor support. This now includes the ability to edit Diameter applications and commands.

VitalAAA 5.2.0 includes the following features:

• Add an interal cron-like function. This allows the injection of new work items based on the current time.
• Add the Dhcpv6 plug-in.
• Support the IPv6 compatable versions of RADIUS client and server MIBs.
• Add support WiMAX QoS attributes.

VitalAAA 5.1.5 includes the following features:

• The TACACS+ protocol support has been updated to respond to initial customer input. This includes names for TACACS+ field elements, and which variable group they are stored in.

VitalAAA 5.1.3 includes the following features:

• The Iterate plug-in now supports executing the input lists in a sorted order.

VitalAAA 5.1.2 includes the following features:

• Add new pool allocation strategies to IPAMv2. These consist of three methods, "exhaustive", "roundrobin" and "even", which can be set through the allocationScheme Pool-Selector attribute. "exhaustive" exhuasts the pools in order, "roundrobin" rotates allocations amongst the pools and "even" attempts to keep the relative utilization even amongst the pools in the selector.

VitalAAA 5.1.1 includes the following features:

• A new IP Address manager, USS Address Manager, has been added to the product. Its functionality is integrated with the USS and the HA-USS.
• TACACS+ protocol support added. This includes server, plug-in, and test client components.
• CALEA supported added.
• Admin Interface state ... commands renamed to uss ....

VitalAAA 5.1.0 was a limited internal release.

VitalAAA 5.0.10 includes the following feature:

• Add new modes to file rollover for the following times:

  In weeks: 2,3,4
  

VitalAAA 5.0.9 includes the following feature:

• Add Success, Failure, and Challenge maps to the Call, Fork, and Iterate Plug-ins.
• Add the following modifiers for maps:

  FormatLocalTimestampWithMillis
  FormatGmtTimestampWithMillis
  dright(delim)
  dleft(delim)
  nright(count)
  nleft(count)
  require(value)
  prohibit(value)
  require-range(low,high)
  prohibit-range(low,high)
  isNumeric
  

• Add new modes to file rollover for the following times:

  In minutes: 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20,30
  In hours: 2,3,4,6,8,12
  In months: 2,3,4,6
  In years: 1
  

VitalAAA 5.0.7 includes the following feature:

• Internal Security subsystem: Allow a new file syntax for VA-Access-Rule that allows escaping the install run directory. For example:

  VA-Access-Rule = "file /tmp/* update"

VitalAAA 5.0.6 includes the following features:

• ReadDelimitedText/ReadColumnarText plug-ins have new search modes LIST, PREFIX, REALM, and RANGE.
• SubString plug-in added.
• CheckCondition plug-in added.
• ReplyGenerator plug-in added.

VitalAAA 5.0.5 includes the following features:

• ReadCache plug-in can now delete an entry after reading.
• WriteCache plug-in can now optionally write an entry depending on whether it is already present.

VitalAAA 5.0.4 includes the following new features:

• Ldap plug-in can now process multiple entries in search results.
• Ldap plug-in can now process referrals.

VitalAAA 5.0.0 includes the following new features:

• Diameter protocol support. (Optional feature)
• An LDAP view of the USS session database. (Optional feature)
• Remote communication from the SMT to the policy and configuration servers can now be protected by an SSL connection.
• Remote communication to the HTTP servers can now be protected by an SSL connection.
• SSH access is now available for the Admin Interface.
• VitalAAA can now be hosted on a machine using IPv6 interfaces for RADIUS server and client traffic.
• Add versions 2C and 3 support to SNMP.
• Diameter Test Client with SMT support.
• EAP support for Radius and Diameter test clients.
• PolicyFlow methods may now define optional logging actions upon SUCCESS, FAILURE or ERROR.
• PolicyFlow programs may now be contained in multiple files and may be invoked as needed.
• The SMT graphical interface has been redesigned for improved ease-of-use.
• Method Selectors has been replaced with Method Dispatch. This offers improved performence and better scalability for implementation of complex policy flows.
• The Snmp plug-in has been added. The Snmp plug-in can send an SNMP Get, Set, Trap or Inform PDU using SNMP version 1, 2c or 3.
• The If plug-in has been added. Used to simplify policy flow branching on booleans
• The WriteDelimitedFile has been added. Can be used to output call detail records in delimited format.
• Allow arbitrarily nested call, fork, and tunnel policy flows.

Diameter Implementation Restrictions

This initial Diameter release has some limitations that may be removed in subsequent releases.

• TLS/TCP/IP and TCP/IPSEC/IP are the only transports available.
• Diameter application specific logic needs to be implemented in policy flow.
• Dynamic peer discovery is not supported.
• IPv6 transport is not available on Microsoft Windows.

StateServer (USS) Changes

In versions of VitalAAA (NavisRadius) before 5.0, the StateServer plug-in automatically copied a few attributes into the USS entry, even if they were not specified in the requestMap property. In 5.0, in order to accomodate the new Diameter feature, only entries explicitly in the requestMap will be copied.

The upgrade process will automatically convert the requestMap if converting from a pre-5.0 version.

The attributes involved are Acct-Status-Type, Acct-Session-Id, and Acct-Delay-Time.

TACACS+ accommodation changes

• The RADIUS clients file has been renamed 'radius_clients', and is now in the user file format, rather than the traditional columnar format.
• The TACACS+ clients file has been added as 'tacacsplus_clients', and is in same format as 'radius_clients'.
• The admin interface command 'file reload clients' retains the ability to read the old format RADIUS clients file 'clients'.
• The Diameter peers file has been renamed 'diameter_peers'. This file has always been in the user file format.

Changes to AuthLocal plug-in to support MS-CHAPv2 with user names with realms

Before VitalAAA release 5.2.7, the default value used in calculating MS-CHAP2-Response was ${packet.base-user-name}. This value was fine if user-name was EXAMPLE\bob but is not okay if user-name is in the form bob@example.com. Testing with Microsoft IAS RADIUS server showed that user names with realm must be used 'as is' in calculation of MS-CHAP2-Response. In VitalAAA release 5.2.7, the default value for method property AuthLocal-UserName was changed to ${request.user-name} and AuthLocal-StripMsDomain method property was added to strip DOMAIN\ from the value provided by AuthLocal-UserName. The default for the AuthLocal-StripMsDomain method property is true. If upgrading to release 5.2.7 breaks existing policies, old behavior can be restored by setting AuthLocal-UserName to ${packet.base-user-name} and AuthLocal-StripMsDomain to false. The change in calculating MS-CHAP2-Response in VitalAAA release 5.2.7 should also match how FreeRADIUS generates MS-CHAP2-Response when authenticating users.