RADIUS authentication poll

[Thomas Wouters]

On Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 02:29:42PM -0400, Jeremy Hylton wrote:

> We recently received a module submission for the Python standard
> library that implements very basic RADIUS authentication.  It's not
> clear how widely useful this module would be.  I've never heard of
> RADIUS authentication before, so I'm inclined to think it is a bit
> obscure for the standard library.  If you think I'm wrong and would
> like to see it in the library, please send me a note to that effect.
> I'll be happy to include it by popular demand.

RADIUS is a protocol to do remote authentication. It's mostly used in the
form of access-routers (dialin servers, leased-line routers) which ask a
centralized server whether the given login/password combination is correct.
It has room for a lot of extra options, like passing configuration options
back and forth, and it's used in schemes like 'international access', where
one providers' radius server polls another providers' radius server to see
if a user of the second ISP is allowed to dial in with the first ISP.

(RADIUS, if I recall correctly, was developed by Livingston, one of the
world players in access routers, which has since been bought by Lucent.
Most, if not all, access routers adopted RADIUS, though some in concert with
their own protocol(s).)

Not really something to put in the std. lib, in my humble opinion. There are
a lot more generally useful modules, like bytecodehacks and the mxSeries,
that are more fitting candidates for inclusion. (Not that I'm advertising
those particular modules, I'm just giving an example.)

(CC list so anyone can disagree ;)

Of course, if the issue is that the module has no place to live, and will
die out if not adopted, I'm willing to adopt it myself. I'd probably not
actually use or develop it, but I can keep it up to date and test it. I
might even use it to test our own RADIUS servers :)

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas at xs4all.net>

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