Controlling Management Access 177
When multiple RADIUS servers are configured with different names, the 
servers are in different groups. The primary/secondary designation and 
priority applies to RADIUS servers only within the same group. Within a 
named group, the switch always attempts to contact the primary RADIUS 
server first. When two or more groups have been configured, the switch 
determines which named group to contact first based on lexicographic order 
(alphabetical) order. 
For example, an administrator configures the following two RADIUS servers 
in this order:
• Server Name is name1 and address is 1.1.1.1
• Server Name is name2 and address is 1.1.1.2
In this example, the switch has two configured authentication servers. 
Because the name for each server is unique, the switch has two named 
authentication server groups.
The switch always attempts to contact the name1 server before moving on to 
name2. Even if the configured priority value of the name2 server is lower 
(lower value indicates higher priority), the request would be sent to the 
name1 servers. The request is sent to the name2 server only if the name1 
server fails to respond.
To provide additional redundancy, the administrator can configure additional 
servers within the named groups, for example:
• Server name is name1 and address is 1.1.1.3
• Server name is name1 and address is 1.1.1.4
• Server name is name 2 and address is 1.1.1.5
Now, the name1 server group includes three configured RADIUS servers, and 
the name2 group has two servers. The administrator can configure the 
primary/secondary status and priority within each group to control which 
server is tried first. Between the two secondary servers, the one with lowest 
priority value is tried if the primary server cannot be contacted. The RADIUS 
servers in the name2 group are contacted only if no servers in the name1 
group can be reached. 
If an additional servers are configured in a group named abc, the primary 
server in the abc group is contacted first because lexicographically, abc comes 
before name1.