Configuring the portal server detection function

Only Layer 3 portal authentication supports this feature.

During portal authentication, if the communication between the access device and portal server is broken, new portal users are not able to log on and the online portal users are not able to log off normally. To address this problem, the access device needs to be able to detect the reachability changes of the portal server quickly and take corresponding actions to deal with the changes. For example, once detecting that the portal server is unreachable, the access device allows portal users to access network resources without authentication. This function is referred to as portal authentication bypass. It allows for flexible user access control.

With the portal server detection function, the device can detect the status of a specific portal server. The specific configurations include:

  • Detection methods (you can choose either or both)

  • Probe parameters

  • Actions to be taken when the server reachability status changes (you can choose one or more)

  • You can configure any combination of the configuration items described as needed, with respect to the following:

    To configure the portal server detection function:

    Step

    Command

    Remarks

    1. Enter system view.

    system-view

    N/A

    2. Configure the portal server detection function.

    portal server server-name server-detect method { http | portal-heartbeat } * action { log | permit-all | trap } * [ interval interval ] [ retry retries ]

    Not configured by default.

    The portal server specified in the command must exist.

    The portal heartbeat detection method works only when the portal server supports the portal server heartbeat function. Only the IMC portal server supports the portal server heartbeat function. To implement detection with this method, you also need to configure the portal server heartbeat function on the IMC portal server and make sure that the product of interval and retry is greater than or equal to the portal server heartbeat interval. Hewlett Packard Enterprise recommends configuring the interval to be greater than the portal server heartbeat interval configured on the portal server.