Portal System Composition

The typical networking method of Portal is shown in the following figure. It consists of four elements: Portal Client, Authentication Device, Portal Server (Portal server) ,and AAA Server (authentication/authorization/statistics server, referred to as AAA server).

Figure 13-1 Portal system composition

• Authenticated Client: Usually, it is the browser running the HTTP protocol, and also can be the proprietary Portal client software.
• Authentication device: The authentication device is located between the client and the authentication server. It controls the network access of the client by interacting with the Portal server and AAA server.
• Portal Server: The server-side system that receives authentication requests from authentication clients, provides free portal services and Web-based authentication interface. Portal Server accepts authentication requests from authentication clients, extracts the authentication information, interacts with authentication devices through the Portal protocol, and notifies the authentication clients of authentication results.
• AAA Server: Usually, it is the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) server, used to verify the validity of the client and notify the authentication result to the authentication device. The authentication device controls the network access of the client according to the authentication result.