Welcome to NI&S AAA!

This documentation is intended to assist new admins of the AAA (authentication, authorization, accounting) system with quickly achieving an operational competency of its components. Here you will find a description of the component software and hardware, a description of the services backed by the system, guides for establishing system access, guides for maintaining the config, and some discussion of the design of the system itself.

This documentation is not intended to provide low-level understanding of the component software, or to be a development guide. Rather it focuses on presenting the basic procedures, and context necessary to maintain and support the existing system and config.

For an in-depth guide on the use of any software component, it is strongly suggested to read the documentation provided by that software's developers. Links to that documentation will be provided under Additional Resources.

In addition to reading the software developers' documentation, the best way to gain knowledge, is to start experimenting with the config on the -dev tier servers, or in your own sandbox. Go build something and see how it breaks!

This documentation is divided into the following sections:

  • Introduction: Provides an overview of the AAA system's software components, and the services they support.
  • Infrastructure: Details the hardware (physical and virtual) serving the AAA system's software components, and also details the licensing for those components.
  • Service Details: Provices an explanation of each of the services backed by the AAA system, and instructions for managing their respective config.
  • Renewal Quick Reference: Provides a quick reference for any significant dates related to those AAA System components which must be renewed by AAA System admins directly.
  • Getting Started: Provides instructions for new admins to aquire access to the system components, and details on the management of sensitive data such as system passwords and certificates.
  • Deployment: Provides instructions on how to deploy the various components.
  • Management: Provides instructions on how to manage the config for the various components.
  • Troubleshooting: Provides tips on how to troubleshoot some of the most common issues had by service customers.
  • Design Considerations: Briefly describes the intent behind some of the design choices for the AAA system.
  • Enhancements: Details some of the desired improvements to the AAA system, and new features that could/should be implemented in the future.
  • Known Issues: A description of any known issues with the AAA system.
  • Additional Resources: Links to various other sources of information, guides, and tools which may be of use in administering the system.