RADIUS/802.1x Latency Guidelines

Question

We're considering a centralising our RADIUS infrastructure but I can't find any information about acceptable latency between the Authenticator (ie. switch or WLC) and the Authentication Server.

Would 100ms roundtrip work well without issues, what about 200ms?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 22 '16 at 02:47

1

You're nowhere near cause for concern. A typical RADIUS access server has a configurable timeout of several seconds (e.g. Brocade switches have a 3 second timeout, Cisco switches have a 5 second timeout, and they all allow you to change it).

Just keep your network connections terrestrial (that is, not over satellite) and you're not likely to run into any issues. If you need to increase the timeout, your existing switches should allow you to do that.

answered Sep 22 '16 at 02:47

Michael Hampton

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Aren't those for the entire authentication process though, not individual latency? – Fowl Sep 22 '16 at 02:51
@Fowl Just how slow is your server? – Michael Hampton Sep 22 '16 at 02:52
My network is slower than you'd believe ;) – Fowl Sep 22 '16 at 03:40
@Fowl You really haven't given any actual reason for concern, though. – Michael Hampton Sep 22 '16 at 05:06

RADIUS/802.1x Latency Guidelines

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