55
D14049.07
March 2010
Grey Headline
(continued)
TANDBERG
VIDEO COMMUNICATION SERVER
ADMINISTRATOR GUIDE
Introduction
Overview and
status
System
configuration
VCS
configuration
Zones and
neighbors
Clustering and
peers
Call
processing
Bandwidth
control
Firewall
traversal
Appendices
Applications
Maintenance
Registration control
Device authentication
The
Device authentication configuration
page controls whether systems attempting to
communicate with the VCS must authenticate with it first, and if so, the type of database used by
the VCS to store the authentication credentials used by these systems.
To go to the
Device authentication configuration
page:
•
VCS configuration > Authentication > Devices > Configuration
To configure authentication using the CLI:
•
xConfiguration Authentication
Authentication mode
The VCS can be configured to use a username and password-based challenge-response scheme
to determine whether it will permit communications from other systems. This process is known as
authentication, and is controlled using the
Authentication mode
setting.
The options are:
On
: systems attempting to communicate with the VCS, including endpoints attempting to send
registration requests to the VCS, must first authenticate with it.
For H.323, any credentials in the message are checked against the authentication database. The
message is allowed if the credentials match, or if there are no credentials in the message. For SIP,
any messages originating from an endpoint in a local domain will be authenticated.
Off
: incoming messages are not authenticated.
The default is
Off
.
!
Accurate timestamps play an important part in authentication, helping to guard against
replay attacks. For this reason, if you are using authentication, both the VCS and the
endpoints must use an NTP server to synchronize their system time. See the
About the
NTP server
section for information on how to configure this for the VCS.
Authentication database
When
Authentication mode
is
On
, endpoints must authenticate with the VCS before they can
register. In order to authenticate successfully, the endpoint must supply the VCS with a username.
For TANDBERG endpoints using H.323, the username is the endpoint’s
Authentication ID
; for
TANDBERG endpoints using SIP it is the endpoint’s
Authentication username
.
For details of how to configure endpoints with a username and password, please consult
the endpoint manual.
To verify the identity of the device, the VCS needs access to a database on which all authentication
credential information (usernames, passwords, and other relevant information) is stored. This
database may be located either locally on the VCS, or on an LDAP Directory Server. The VCS looks
up the endpoint’s username in the database and retrieves the authentication credentials for
that entry. If the credentials match those supplied by the endpoint, the registration is allowed to
proceed.
The
Database type
setting determines which database the VCS will use during authentication:
Local database
: the local authentication database is used. You must
configure the local
authentication database
to use this option.
LDAP database
: a remote LDAP database is used. You must
configure the LDAP server
to use this
option.
The default is
LocalDatabase
.
!
If the VCS is a traversal server, you must ensure that each traversal client’s authentication
credentials are entered into the selected database.
The VCS supports the
ITU H.235 specification [1]
for authenticating the identity of H.323
network devices with which it communicates.
