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Device AAA

Overview

RADIUS and TACACS+ device AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) frameworks are supported on Juniper, Cisco and Arista devices. Device AAA is optional and correct implementation is the responsibility of the end user. Minimum requirements for correct Apstra AAA implementations are described below.

CAUTION:

When using AAA framework we recommend adding a local Apstra user to devices. If AAA authentication or authorization fails when Apstra performs a full configuration push, manual recovery (config push) is required.

You can apply AAA configuration in one of two ways as described below:

Configlets (Recommended)

You add configuration to a configlet, then you import it into a blueprint. Local credentials must be available from the Apstra environment so the device can be added and the configlet can be applied. For details, see Configlets.

CAUTION:

Before you upgrade the Apstra server, device agent, or NOS, you must delete device AAA/TACACS configlets from blueprints. After the upgrade is complete, you can re-apply them.

User-required

Instead of using configlets, you can add configuration before acknowledging a device, so it becomes part of the Pristine Config. For more information, see Device Configuration Lifecycle.

Juniper Junos

CAUTION:

Credentials for the Junos offbox system agent user must always be valid and available. When using the AAA framework we recommend that you add a local user to devices and use it for Apstra offbox system agents. Always have “password” be first in Junos config for authentication-order as follows:

Cisco NX-OS

CAUTION:

A remote user could erratically be removed from NX-OS devices, causing authentication and authorization failures. The user (role 'network-admin') must exist on the device in order to manage the device. If not, Apstra functions such as agent installation, telemetry collection and device configuration may fail. The only known workaround is to use local authentication.

The example NX-OS configuration below has been tested to work correctly with Apstra software. This uses both authentication and authorization:

Arista EOS

CAUTION:

When TACACS+ AAA is configured on EOS devices, device agent upgrades could fail while files are copied from the Apstra server to the device. This commonly happens if TACACS+ uses a custom password prompt. To prevent this type of failure, temporarily disable all TACACS+ AAA where device authentication uses an admin-level username and password for any device agent operations, including upgrades.