RADIUSD(8) FreeRADIUS Daemon RADIUSD(8)NAMEradiusd - Authentication, Authorization and Accounting server
SYNOPSISradiusd [-A] [-S] [-a accounting_directory] [-b] [-c] [-d config_direc‐
tory] [-f] [-i ip-address] [-l log_directory] [-g facility] [-p port]
[-s] [-v] [-x] [-X] [-y] [-z]
DESCRIPTION
This is the FreeRADIUS implementation of the well known radius server
program. Even though this program is largely compatible with Liv‐
ingston's radius version 2.0, it is not based on any part of that code.
FreeRADIUS is a high-performance and highly configurable RADIUS server.
As a result, it can be difficult to configure in systems with complex
requirements. Our suggestion is to proceed via the following steps:
1) Always run the server in debugging mode ( radiusd-X ). We cannot
emphasize this enough. If you are not running the server in debugging
mode, you will not be able to see what is doing, and you will not be
able to correct any problems.
2) When editing the radiusd.conf file, change as little as possible,
especially in the authorize{} section. The ordering of the modules is
critical for the server to be able to "automatically" figure out how to
handle the request. Changing the order of the modules ensures that the
server will not work.
3) When testing, start off by configuring a user and password in the
users file. So long as the server knows about a user, and has a clear-
text password for that user, almost all of the authentication methods
will "just work".
4) Gradually add more complex configurations to the server, while test‐
ing them as you go. If you start off by configuring the server in a
complex configuration, you will never be able to debug it.
5) Ask questions on the mailing list (freeradius-users@lists.freera‐
dius.org). When asking questions, include the output from debugging
mode ( radiusd-X ). This information will allow people to help you.
Without it, your message will get ignored.
BACKGROUND
RADIUS is a protocol spoken between an access server, typically a
device connected to several modems or ISDN lines, and a radius server.
When a user connects to the access server, (s)he is asked for a login‐
name and a password. This information is then sent to the radius
server. The server replies with "access denied", or "access OK". In the
latter case login information is sent along, such as the IP address in
the case of a PPP connection.
The access server also sends login and logout records to the radius
server so accounting can be done. These records are kept for each ter‐
minal server seperately in a file called detail, and in the wtmp com‐
patible logfile /var/log/radwtmp.
OPTIONS-A Write a file detail.auth in addition to the standard detail file
in the same directory. This file will contain all the authenti‐
cation-request records. This can be useful for debugging, but
not for normal operation.
This command line option is accepted only for backwards compati‐
bility. It no longer does anything. See the configuration for
the detail module in radiusd.conf.
-S Write the stripped usernames (without prefix or suffix) in the
detail file instead of the raw record as received from the ter‐
minal server.
This command line option is deprecated. See the
log_stripped_names configuration item in the radiusd.conf file.
-a accounting directory
This defaults to /var/log/radacct. If that directory exists,
radiusd will write an ascii accounting record into a detail file
for every login/logout recorded. The location of the detail file
is acct_dir/terminal_server/detail.
This command line option is deprecated. See the radacctdir con‐
figuration item in the radiusd.conf file.
-l logging directory
This defaults to /var/log. Radiusd writes a logfile here called
radius.log. It contains informational and error messages, and
optionally a record of every login attempt (for aiding an ISP's
helpdesk). The special arguments stdout and stderr cause the
information to get written to the standard output, or standard
error instead. The special argument syslog sends the information
with syslog(3).
This command line option is deprecated. See the log_dir config‐
uration item in the radiusd.conf file.
-g facility
Specifies the syslog facility to be used with -l syslog. Default
is daemon. Another reasonable choice would be authpriv.
-d config directory
Defaults to /etc/raddb. Radiusd looks here for its configuration
files such as the dictionary and the users files.
-i ip-address
Defines which IP addres to bind to for sending and receiving
packets- useful for multi-homed hosts.
This command line option is deprecated. See the bind_address
configuration item in the radiusd.conf file.
-b If the radius server binary was compiled with dbm support, this
flag tells it to actually use the database files instead of the
flat users file.
This command line option is deprecated, and does not do any‐
thing.
-c This is still an experimental feature. Cache the password,
group and shadow files in a hash-table in memory. This makes
the radius process use a bit more memory, but username lookups
in the password file are much faster.
After every change in the real password file (user added, pass‐
word changed) you need to send a SIGHUP to the radius server to
let it re-read its configuration and the password/group/shadow
files !
This command line option is deprecated. See the cache configu‐
ration item for the unix module in the radiusd.conf file.
-f Do not fork, stay running as a foreground process.
-p port
Normally radiusd listens on the ports specified in /etc/services
(radius and radacct). With this option radiusd listens on the
specified port for authentication requests and on the specified
port +1 for accounting requests.
This command line option is deprecated. See the port configura‐
tion item in the radiusd.conf file.
-s Run in "single server" mode. The server normally runs with mul‐
tiple threads and/or processes, which can lower its response
time to requests. Some systems have issues with threading, how‐
ever, so running in "single server" mode may help to address
those issues. In single server mode, the server will also not
"daemonize" (auto-background) itself.
-v Print server version information and exit.
-x Debug mode. In this mode the server will print details of every
request on it's stderr output. Most useful in combination with
-s. You can specify this option 2 times (-x -x or -xx) to get a
bit more debugging output.
-X Extended debug mode. Equivalent to -sfxx, but simpler to
explain.
-y Write details about every authentication request in the
radius.log file.
This command line option is deprecated. See the log_auth con‐
figuration item in the radiusd.conf file.
-z Include the password in the radius.log file even for successful
logins. This is very insecure!.
This command line option is deprecated. See the log_auth_bad‐
pass and the log_auth_goodpass configuration items in the
radiusd.conf file.
CONFIGURATION
Radiusd uses a number of configuration files. Each file has it's own
manpage describing the format of the file. These files are:
radiusd.conf
The main configuration file, which sets the administrator-con‐
trolled items.
dictionary
This file is usually static. It defines all the possible RADIUS
attributes used in the other configuration files. You don't
have to modify it. It includes other dictionary files in the
same directory.
clients
[ Deprecated ] Contains the IP address and a secret key for
every client that wants to connect to the server.
naslist
Contains an entry for every NAS (Network Access Server) in the
network. This is not the same as a client, especially if you
have radius proxy server in your network. In that case, the
proxy server is the client and it sends requests for different
NASes.
It also contains a abbreviated name for each terminal server,
used to create the directory name where the detail file is writ‐
ten, and used for the /var/log/radwtmp file. Finally it also
defines what type of NAS (Cisco, Livingston, Portslave) the NAS
is.
hints Defines certain hints to the radius server based on the users's
loginname or other attributes sent by the access server. It also
provides for mapping user names (such as Pusername -> username).
This provides the functionality that the Livingston 2.0 server
has as "Prefix" and "Suffix" support in the users file, but is
more general. Ofcourse the Livingston way of doing things is
also supported, and you can even use both at the same time
(within certain limits).
huntgroups
Defines the huntgroups that you have, and makes it possible to
restrict access to certain huntgroups to certain (groups of)
users.
users Here the users are defined. On a typical setup, this file mainly
contains DEFAULT entries to process the different types of
logins, based on hints from the hints file. Authentication is
then based on the contents of the UNIX /etc/passwd file. However
it is also possible to define all users, and their passwords, in
this file.
SEE ALSOradiusd.conf(5), users(5), huntgroups(5), hints(5), clients(5), dictio‐
nary(5).
AUTHOR
The FreeRADIUS Server Project (http://www.freeradius.org)
23 June 2004 RADIUSD(8)
