Cisco Secure ACS - Alarm Notification

[Khurram Noor]

Hi,

I have got a notification from Cisco ACS 5.2.0.26.2. it is a system alarm for collector, the cause is " value too long (<ACS Server Name>, TacacsAuthentication), Alarm details is "Please see the collector log for details". In our environment we are using devices authentication via tacacs. Can anyone guide how to find what can be causing this problem...Thx a lot.

[steve-lawrence]

Why does Cisco not answer this? I am getting the same error. It would be nice if I could find it here and not have to call TAC.

[Khurram Noor]

Hi Steve,

cisco has replied to this problem with following reasons.

1)      We usually face such errors because of a terminal server, but if there is no terminal server then please get it physically checked what is connected on Console port, even if we have a console cable connected remove it. It seems like there is something that is causing a noise on console port. If it is a terminal server and you can't just remove it from there, then go to the terminal server and identify the line causing noise then under line x y, issue the command "no exec".

2)      If there is no terminal server or any console connected to the ACS server, then we experience such issue when we have a network device configure as a aaa-client which is connected to a modem, on this cases the modem send a lot of information to the router which also sends a lot of garbage to the ACS causing a lot of alarms like the ones that you are getting.

3)      Also the problem could be related with long usernames use for authentication which may cause this kind of alarms.

In my case a console cable was connected on console port. I removed it, and this alarm stopped.