RADIUS Server failover not working via Authentication Profile

[ebonjour]

I have two servers listed in my RADIUS Server Profile.

If I shutdown RADIUS on the server that is first in the list I do not see my firewall attempt authentication to the second server.  Authentication fails.

If I completely shutdown the first server in the list I do not see any attempts to authenticate to the second server.  Authentication fails.

I have swapped IPs and have authenticated to the second server, so confirmed routing/password/port to second server is correct.

Checking logs I never see authentication going to the second RADIUS server, so having two servers in the RADIUS Server Profile seems to have absolutly no effect.

Anyone test this before and got it working?

Note: I do have a support ticket open, going as well as searching through knowledge base articles on RADIUS... (I already did that myself).

[MickBall]

Swapping ip will only test that the password/ shared secret is correct for the first entry.

just as a test i would remove server 1 entry and just test server 2 on its own.

but of course you may be correct that it never tries server 2 but may be worth a test.

[ebonjour]

I have done the test as you suggested, both RADIUS servers work as expected so it doesn't seem like an issue on my side.

Not sure what Palo Alto is using to determine if a RADIUS server is not working.

[nishanna]

Just wondering if you managed to find a solution to your problem? I'm having the same issue...

[ebonjour]

No, I opened a ticket but the "solutions" provided didn't fit in with my use case.

This is the answer provided to me

1. ==> There is a global timeout for global-protect process which is 25 seconds by default. It must be the same as or greater than the total time that any server profile allows for connection attempts. The total time in a server profile is the timeout value multiplied by the number of retries and the number of servers. For example, if a RADIUS server profile specifies a 3-second timeout, 3 retries, and 2 servers, the total time that the profile allows for connection attempts is 18 seconds (3 x 3 x 2).

This is just not acceptable when using two factor authentication.

You can adjust via CLI with "set deviceconfig setting global-protect timeout  <range is 3-150 sec>", it is not in any GUI.

I also have no idea how this may work with multiple GP gateways... as the whole retry for that is insane.

A good idea I was provided is setting authentication protocol in your RADIUS server profile to either CHAP or PAP and not AUTO.  This will cut down on the overall time it takes to retry on a failed server as it will query each host for CHAP and PAP per RADIUS server retry count.