prefixkit Ask an engineerAsk RU

Port 1813 RADIUS accounting

RADIUS accounting (session start/stop, traffic).

Protocol
UDP
Service
RADIUS accounting
Exposing to the internet
Expose with care

This is a UDP port: UDP reachability cannot be tested reliably with a simple connect; check firewall rules and packet counters.

Is it safe to open

Infrastructure services (DNS, NTP, DHCP, routing) should answer only the networks they serve. Open resolvers and time servers get abused for DDoS amplification.

How to open port 1813

Open to everyone

# Linux iptables
iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 1813 -j ACCEPT
# Ubuntu ufw
ufw allow 1813/udp
# firewalld
firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=1813/udp && firewall-cmd --reload
# MikroTik
/ip firewall filter add chain=input protocol=udp dst-port=1813 action=accept place-before=0 comment="port 1813"
# Windows (PowerShell)
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Port 1813 UDP" -Direction Inbound -Protocol UDP -LocalPort 1813 -Action Allow

Only for your addresses

# allow only one address or network (replace 203.0.113.0/24)
iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 1813 -s 203.0.113.0/24 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 1813 -j DROP
ufw allow from 203.0.113.0/24 to any port 1813 proto udp
/ip firewall filter add chain=input protocol=udp dst-port=1813 src-address=203.0.113.0/24 action=accept
/ip firewall filter add chain=input protocol=udp dst-port=1813 action=drop

If the server is behind a router, you also need a port forward (dst-nat). Behind ISP CGNAT (100.64.0.0/10 on the WAN) forwarding will not help: you need a public IP or a VPN.

What is listening

Check on the server

# what listens on the port
ss -lntup | grep ':1813 '
netstat -ano | findstr :1813   # Windows
lsof -i :1813   # macOS

Related ports