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Radius stops working for no reason!

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by awarner 1 view

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HI! I've got a Cisco PIX firewall 515E and use a Windows 2000 server's Radius as an extra step of authorization for VPN users. At least twice a week, I get a call from an outside user that they cannot get into the VPN "authorization failed". I have come to find that restarting the Windows 2000 server resolves the issue "every" time. There is never any errors in the logs, Radius is always running (though if I try to stop and start the service, I get an error that it cannot be stopped. I also use this server to dish out licenses to a number of our engineering packages so it's a real problem to constantly restart the server and kick out all my engineers from their work. Any thoughts on this? How to repair a problem you can't see? I'm close to just setting Radius up on another box and letting it go. Please help a frustrated admin :)

5 replies

by sgt_shultz

i do not know this one. but if you feel like it here are some questions:
are you on latest sp and critical updates for your win2k server box that you reboot to fix this problem. ditto for radius and the bios, drivers and other software on this box.
did this used to work? what kind of things may have changed?
that is pretty good reproducable symptom of not being able to shut down radius service. you saying that when you reboot, you can then stop and restart this service as you expect?
my 2 cents is: i think setting up radius on another box is good idea, worth the time..

by sgt_shultz

i was surprised at how much was in the mskb at support.microsoft.com when i searched using windows 2000 server radius.
more questions came into my mind: what is the os of the clients having problems. could it be just one client bringing things down. is the pix firewall up to latest greatest on it's patches and stuff. wonder if cisco website has anything to help...

by awarner

With much frustration, I just shut Radius off and set up a new server dedicated to Radius alone. Works great now.

by awarner

In regardes to the first response, yeah, I've got that server patched to its gills. It serves many purposes besides Radius so it could be one of its other functions. Even after restarting, I cannot stop the Radius service. The first month or two we used it, it worked well, then it needed reset about once a month, then once a week, now maybe 2-3 times in a week.
Our clients are all Win2K and XP laptops. We have no control over our PIX so I don't know if it's patched, but my tech support guy from Cisco said it's the server, not the PIX's issue (typical response!!)

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