#SecureSenses --verbose

In a previous post I showed how I installed ACS in VBox. The reason I wanted it in VBox was so I could add it to GNS3 topology as a host. GNS uses first NIC in of a VM as a “management” NIC and adds a second NIC for linking within the topology.  ACS supports only single NIC (even the hardware appliance that comes with 4 NICs, has 3 of them disabled). “Runtime”  is the process that listens to and processes TACACS and RADIUS requests. It gets “bound” to the IP addresses configured during the initial setup. When ACS is added to GNS and second NIC installed and configured, the "runtime" still listens only on the first NICs IP address. Configuring the second NIC, disabling the first one and restarting ACS application results in "runtime" not starting at all. To get around that, I needed to do the following at the ACS’s console once ACS was added to GNS as a VBox host: 1.          Configure second NIC with the same IP address as the first one # configure term

Monitoring and alerting on failed authentication attempts is a crucial part of a security strategy. Failed authentication events may be a result of someone trying to guess or brute force passwords.   ACS is used for controlling access to network devices such as switches, routers, firewalls as well as authenticating VPN connections and wireless access. Authentication failures from ACS could alert us of an attacker trying to establish remote connection over VPN or trying to penetrate our wireless. We’ll need 3 separate alarms to notify us of: Attempts to access network devices (TACACS+ authentication failures )         Attempts to penetrate wireless or VPN (RADIUS authentication failures)            Attempts to access ACS admin interface (ACS Instance authentication failures) To configure alerting we need to go to: “Monitoring and Reports” -> “Launch Monitoring & Report Viewer”  “Alarms” -> “Thresholds”     1.        Configuring TACACS+ authentic

ACS 5.3 is supported on a hardware appliance, VMWare ESX and VMWare Server. Even though not supported, it works without modification in VMWare Player. None of the above helps us if we want to test it with switches or routers in GNS3. While version 5.2 could be installed in VirtualBox, v5.3 consistently failed installation with “Unsupported hardware” error message. After trying all possible combinations of virtual hardware in VBox it still refused to install. After some hacking I eventually managed to get working. Installation requires modification of the ISO image provided by Cisco and a bit of cheating in the kickstart file and pre-creation of partitions in the VM. We will need ISO editor (ISOpen or MagicISO), text editor (such as Notepad++) and a Linux live CD of your choice. VBox hardware configuration: OS Type: RedHat RAM: 1024 CPU: PAE/NX enabled, VT-x/AMD-V disabled Floppy: Disabled Storage: Disk 70GB (I used dynamically expanded), Controller SCSI, SCSI Port 0