Chapter 4. TACACS+
4.0. Introduction
The Terminal Access Controller Access Control System (TACACS) protocol dates back to an earlier era in networking when terminal servers were common. The terminal server was also called a Terminal Access Controller (TAC), so TACACS was the TAC Access Control System.
A company called BBN developed the TACACS protocol in the early 1980s. BBN played a key role in the early development of the Internet (parts of BBN were subsequently absorbed by companies such as Verizon and Cisco). The original protocol included only basic functionality to forward login credentials to a central server, and the ability for the server to respond with a pass or fail based on those credentials.
Cisco implemented several extensions to the original TACACS protocol in 1990, and called the new version XTACACS (Extended TACACS), which is described in RFC 1492. However, the IETF considers this RFC to be purely informational, and not an official protocol specification.
More recently, Cisco has replaced both of these earlier versions of TACACS with a newer implementation called TACACS+. The three different versions are not compatible with one another. In fact, Cisco considers the two earlier versions to be obsolete and no longer supports them, although they are still included in the IOS for backward compatibility reasons. This chapter focuses on only the newest TACACS+ version. There is no RFC protocol specification for TACACS+.
It is important to remember that TACACS+ is a Cisco ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access