About User Identity Sources

The following table provides a brief overview of the user identity sources supported by the system. Each identity source provides a store of users for user awareness. These users can then be controlled with identity and access control policies.


User Identity Source	Server Requirements	Login Type	Authentication Type	User Control	For more, see...
Captive portal	OpenLDAP Microsoft Active Directory	Authoritative	Active	Yes	The Captive Portal Identity Source
ISE/ISE-PIC	Microsoft Active Directory	Authoritative	Passive	Yes	The ISE/ISE-PIC Identity Source
Remote Access VPN	OpenLDAP or Microsoft Active Directory	Authoritative	Active	Yes	The Remote Access VPN Identity Source
Remote Access VPN	RADIUS	Authoritative	Active	No, awareness only	The Remote Access VPN Identity Source
TS Agent	Microsoft Windows Terminal Server	Authoritative	Passive	Yes	The Terminal Services (TS) Agent Identity Source
Traffic-based detection (Configured in the network discovery policy.)	—	Non-authoritative	—	No, awareness only	The Traffic-Based Detection Identity Source

Consider the following when selecting identity sources to deploy:

You must use traffic-based detection for non-LDAP user logins.
You must use traffic-based detection or captive portal to record failed login or authentication activity. A failed login or authentication attempt does not add a new user to the list of users in the database.
The captive portal identity source requires a managed device with a routed interface. You cannot use an inline (also referred to as tap mode) interface with captive portal.

Data from those identity sources is stored in the management center's users database and the user activity database. You can configure management center-server user downloads to automatically and regularly download new user data to your databases.

After you configure identity rules using the desired identity source, you must associate each rule with an access control policy and deploy the policy to managed devices for the policy to have any effect. For more information about access control policies and deployment, see Associating Other Policies with Access Control.

For general information about user identity, see About User Identity.