Cisco Access Control Security: AAA Administrative Services

Chapter 1. Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting Overview

In this chapter, you learn the following topics:

• Authentication overview

• Authentication example

• Authorization overview

• Authorization example

• Accounting overview

• Accounting example

• Cisco device support

Authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) is a way to control who is allowed to access your network (authenticate), what they can do while they are there (authorize), and to audit what actions they performed while accessing the network (accounting).

AAA can be used in Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) to provide preshared keys during the Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) process or to provide per-user authentication, known as XAUTH, during ISAKMP ...