Radius Authentication Provider Name Limited to 14 Characters

ID: Q244982

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

After you configure a Radius authentication provider in Microsoft Management Console (MMC), the Internet Authentication service (IAS) may not start and you may receive the following error message:

The service failed to start. Please use the NT Event Viewer to examine the application event log for details.

The System log in Event Viewer may contain the following entry:

The Radius Server / Proxy service terminated with the following error: The parameter is incorrect", and application log is said "An error occurred while processing column 47 of line 5 of file USERS: Address Expected.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if the authentication provider name is longer than 14 characters; the configuration utility cannot handle longer names.

RESOLUTION

To work around this issue, do not use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the authentication provider. Use either the actual server name without including the domain name, or use the TCP/IP address of the authentication provider in the DNS Name box when you configure the Radius server in MMC.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kberrmsg ntras ntdomain ntsecurity
Version : winnt:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbprb