NTTacPlus

NTTacPlus is a centralized server application for the control and management of remote access to the network through the standard protocols TACACS+ (developed by Cisco) and RADIUS (developed by Livingston, now IETF standard). This application implements the AAA model (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting):

Authentication Identifying who a user is (username/password pair validation) Authorization Identifying what a user can do (network resource assignment). Accounting Recording process which keeps track of system utilization by the user.

NTTacPlus can operate both as a stand alone program or as a service under Windows NT. NTTacPlus is based on a user database that can be implemented in two different ways: a set of simple text files, each file representing a user, and an ODBC SQL database (such as Microsoft Access or SQL server) in which there are two different tables: one for user accounts and one for the group profiles. User profiles contain account parameters (password expiration date, login hours and credits, etc.). The Network Access Server (NAS) sometimes also called Communication Server, Remote Access Server or Terminal Server is a device which usually accepts remote accesses through phone calls on analogic or ISDN lines with modems or ISDN terminal adapters. The NAS allows to connect dial-in users to the internal network (Intranet) - typically a Local Area Network (LAN) - or to the Internet as a whole. NTTacPlus accepts authentication and authorization queries from the NAS (such as 3Com Total Control, Ascend Max, Livingston PortMaster, Cisco AS5200), examining user profiles and taking into account the characteristics configured for each user.