What is Radiator?

Learn what Radiator is and how it provides AAA services for network infrastructure

What is Radiator?

Radiator is a high-performance AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting) server designed for mission-critical network infrastructure. It provides secure and reliable identity and access management for networked devices and services.

What is AAA?

AAA stands for Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting:

  • Authentication - Verifying the identity of users or devices attempting to access network resources
  • Authorization - Determining what authenticated users or devices are permitted to do
  • Accounting - Recording and tracking network resource usage for billing, auditing, and capacity planning

AAA servers act as centralized gatekeepers for network access, ensuring that only legitimate users and devices can connect to your infrastructure while maintaining detailed records of all activity.

Protocol Support

Radiator speaks multiple industry-standard AAA protocols:

RADIUS

The Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) protocol is the most widely deployed AAA protocol for network access. Radiator supports:

  • RADIUS over UDP - The traditional RADIUS transport
  • RADIUS over TCP - For improved reliability and connection-oriented communication
  • RADIUS over TLS (RadSec) - For encrypted, secure RADIUS communication

TACACS+

Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+) is commonly used for device administration, particularly for network equipment like routers and switches.

HTTP

For modern web-based authentication scenarios, Radiator supports HTTP-based authentication protocols.

Backend Integration

Radiator can connect to a wide variety of external systems to perform authentication, authorization, and accounting operations:

  • LDAP and Active Directory
  • SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc.)
  • External RADIUS servers
  • RESTful APIs
  • Custom Lua scripts
  • And many more...

This flexibility allows Radiator to integrate seamlessly into existing infrastructure without requiring changes to your current identity stores or business logic.

Management Interface

Radiator includes a modern web-based UI for:

  • Configuration management - Edit and manage server configuration through an intuitive interface
  • Real-time monitoring - View live statistics and server status
  • Log viewing - Search and analyze authentication logs
  • User management - Manage users and their access rights (when using built-in stores)

The UI makes it easy to operate AAA infrastructure without needing to manually edit configuration files or parse log files.

Use Cases

Radiator is deployed in a variety of scenarios:

  • Wireless network authentication (WiFi, WPA-Enterprise, eduroam)
  • VPN access control
  • Network device administration
  • ISP subscriber management
  • IoT device authentication
  • Healthcare network access (HIPAA compliance)
  • Government and defense networks
  • Educational institutions (university networks)

Next Steps

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