Thursday
Jan252007
FreeRADIUS
Thursday, January 25, 2007 at 20:15
Most companies/institutions use Windows clients (Windows 2000, XP), but their backend might be different. There's the Microsoft Active Directory, [cough]Novell eDirectory (former NDS)[/cough], or a more Generic LDAP (like the SUN Directory ONE).
The problem with network authentication with the use of Microsoft clients is that the authentication process uses MS-CHAPv2. This is a Microsoft mechanisme for authenticating. This means that the RADIUS server used for authenticating should also be able to authenticate using MS-CHAPv2. The Internet Authentication Service from Microsoft is pretty MS only, so not much of a help with other backends. So there's a need for a RADIUS server which talks to different backends. One option is the great RADIATOR RADIUS server. It's fully customizable, but not for free.
Today, I stumbled on FreeRADIUS. This RADIUS server is free (duh), and is also fully customizable. Downside is that you need to compile the software yourself, and the documentation is not that great.
Tried to compile/install it on my FreeBSD 'server', but make was missing. So I downloaded make, and installed it, but the install script kept saying that make wasn't installed.... Well I guess that's one of the reasons why Linux won't be adopted by the masses soon. Spent about an hour to fix it, but I just have to give up.
Well, time to download a precompiles Win32 version from freeradius.net
The problem with network authentication with the use of Microsoft clients is that the authentication process uses MS-CHAPv2. This is a Microsoft mechanisme for authenticating. This means that the RADIUS server used for authenticating should also be able to authenticate using MS-CHAPv2. The Internet Authentication Service from Microsoft is pretty MS only, so not much of a help with other backends. So there's a need for a RADIUS server which talks to different backends. One option is the great RADIATOR RADIUS server. It's fully customizable, but not for free.
Today, I stumbled on FreeRADIUS. This RADIUS server is free (duh), and is also fully customizable. Downside is that you need to compile the software yourself, and the documentation is not that great.
Tried to compile/install it on my FreeBSD 'server', but make was missing. So I downloaded make, and installed it, but the install script kept saying that make wasn't installed.... Well I guess that's one of the reasons why Linux won't be adopted by the masses soon. Spent about an hour to fix it, but I just have to give up.
Well, time to download a precompiles Win32 version from freeradius.net
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