The developers of FreeRADIUS speak on their product and its development, from the FreeRADIUS web site: FreeRADIUS is one of the most modular and featureful [sic] RADIUS servers available today. It has been written by a team of developers who have more than a decade of collective experience in implementing and deploying RADIUS software, in software engineering, and in Unix package management. The product is the result of synergy between many of the best-known names in free software-based RADIUS implementations , including several developers of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system, and is distributed under the GNU GPL (version 2). FreeRADIUS is a complete rewrite, ground-up compilation of a RADIUS server. The configuration files exhibit many similarities to the old Livingston RADIUS server. The product includes support for: -
Limiting the maximum number of simultaneous logons , even on a per- user basis -
More than one DEFAULT entry, with each being capable of "falling through" to the next -
Permitting and denying access to users based on the huntgroup to which they are connected -
Setting certain parameters to be huntgroup specific -
Intelligent "hints" files that select authentication protocols based on the syntax of the username -
Executing external programs upon successful login -
Using the $INCLUDE filename format with configuration, users, and dictionary files -
Vendor-specific attributes -
Acting as a proxy RADIUS server FreeRADIUS supports the following popular NAS equipment: -
3Com/USR Hiper Arc Total Control -
3Com/USR NetServer -
3Com/USR TotalControl -
Ascend Max 4000 family -
Cisco Access Server family -
Cistron PortSlave -
Computone PowerRack -
Cyclades PathRAS -
Livingston PortMaster -
Multitech CommPlete Server -
Patton 2800 family FreeRADIUS is available for a wide range of platforms, including Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OSF/Unix, and Solaris. For the purposes of this book, I will focus on FreeRADIUS running under Linux. Also, as of this printing, a stable Version 1.0 of the product had not been released. However, development of the server is very stable, careful, and somewhat slow, so changes to the procedures mentioned are unlikely . In the event a procedure does change, it's likely to be a relatively small modification. Always check the FreeRADIUS web site for up-to-date details. |