Secure ACS question

[John Huthmaker]

Can anyone confirm if the Tacacs 5.3 has the ability to back up (and possibly restore) router, switch, and firewall configurations?

Besides allowing or disallowing access, what else can this device do?          

[mauzamor · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

This backup/restore IOS devices configuration feature is not available on the ACS 5.3, this is an authentication server and among other things its job is to verify if the correct username/password is gaining access to the network, what type of access they can have, send attributes back for VPN connections, handle management access, authenticate against external databases like RSA, LDAP, AD, etc.

This server is very flexible, although backing up configurations is not an option yet.

Let me know if it helps.

[John Huthmaker]

Thank you for responding.

Any chance 5.4 has that feature?  If not, is something even planned for a future release?

[mauzamor]

John,

ACS 5.4 has been available since last year and it doesn't have this feature or something similar.

I don't think this is in the route map, i haven't heard anything about it.

[John Huthmaker]

Okay, so that answers that.  In your opinion then, is there any value in updating to 5.4 from 5.3?

[mauzamor]

John,

I would recommend an upgrade only if I am facing an issue with the current ACS version and the problem is fixed in the next release, or if you need a feature that is included in the next release, otherwise just stay on the current version.