The IronGate AAA-network management infrastructure

Abstract

This work presents a short abstract of the current alpha-state implementation IronGate which provides user authentication and accounting. IronGate steps into a new way of network management, which involves tools and functions of accounting and network management that have never been implemented before, by still keeping its flexibility high and the need for maintenance low. IronGate offers a wide area of operation within (wireless) local-, campus- and metropolitan area networks. Its high efficiency is achieved by outsourcing a high percentage of management functions to external tools provided by the Linux operating system. This optimization and performance level could hardly be reached by doing a self-implementation of the necessary parts. Instead of wasting valuable time in re-implementations of existing systems, IronGate has a focus on the idea behind a powerful management suite using all possible ways of user control and accounting which are available nowadays. These are, to mention just a few, advanced traffic accounting and shaping, user and super ordinary group management, dynamic and absolutely transparent multilayer firewalling, support for any kind of network infrastructure including wireless LAN, user-friendly and OS-independent client and administration frontends, backends for all mainstream user databases and directories and last but not least a very flexible scalability.