Install and Setup FreeRADIUS on CentOS 5/6 and Ubuntu 11.10

A simple tutorial to setup and configure FreeRADIUS on CentOS 5/6 and Ubuntu 11.10.

Just follow the instructions below to have your FreeRADIUS setup ready to go when used along with our WHMCS module, we have distinguished the difference between CentOS commands and Ubuntu commands:

CentOS 5:

yum install freeradius2 freeradius2-mysql freeradius2-utils mysql-server -y

CentOS 6:

yum install freeradius freeradius-mysql freeradius-utils mysql-server -y

Ubuntu:

apt-get install freeradius freeradius-mysql freeradius-utils mysql-server

They should install without any problems.

To setup MySQL run the following to set your password:

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

Common problems usually arise on cPanel servers but please check our knowldgebase for fixing issues on cPanel servers, next we need to create the radius database, type:

mysql

or

mysql -uroot -p

Then enter your mysql root password to continue…

Now create the database and grant all privileges to user radius:

CREATE DATABASE radius;

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON radius.* TO radius@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "radpass";

flush privileges;

In certain situations you may need to grant remote access to mysql, to do this please follow the guide below:

Now thats done we want to import the tables for radius:

mysql> use radius;

CentOS:

SOURCE /etc/raddb/sql/mysql/schema.sql

Ubuntu:

SOURCE /etc/freeradius/sql/mysql/schema.sql

exit

Now open up CentOS:/etc/raddb/sql.conf Ubuntu: /etc/freeradius/sql.conf and enter your mysql database details you just created, Example:

# Connection info:
server = "localhost"
#port = 3306
login = "radius"
password = "radpass"

# Database table configuration for everything except Oracle
radius_db = "radius"

In /etc/raddb/radiusd.conf ensure that the line saying:

$INCLUDE sql.conf

is uncommented.

Edit /etc/raddb/sites-available/default and uncomment the line containing ‘sql’ in the authorize{} section and ‘sql’ in the accounting {} section, also uncomment ‘sql’ under session {}.

Additionally, edit /etc/raddb/sites-available/inner-tunnel and uncomment the line containing ‘sql’ under “authorize {}” and under session {}.

Open up /etc/raddb/clients.conf set your secret to something a bit more random, example:

Change:

secret = testing123

To something like:

secret = 3c23498n349c3yt290y93b4t3

Now check to see if Radius is working ok:

CentOS:

service radiusd restart

service radiusd stop

Ubuntu:

service freeradius restart

service freeradius stop

To add clients (External VPN Servers) you would edit CentOS: /etc/raddb/clients.conf Ubuntu:/etc/freeradius/clients.conf and directly under this line:

# coa_server = coa
}

Add a block such as this:

client VPN_SERVER_IP {
secret = YOUR SECRET HERE
shortname = yourVPN
nastype = other
}

To allow external servers and software to authenticate off your FreeRADIUS, this has to be done every time you setup an external server to use this FreeRADIUS database.

Everytime you add a client or change a value in the config files you need to restart radius like this:

CentOS:

service radiusd restart

Ubuntu:

service freeradius restart

Add a test user to the radius database, first you need to login to your mysql radius database:

mysql -uroot -pyourrootpass

Switch to the radius database:

use radius;

Once there execute the below commands:

mysql> INSERT INTO `radcheck` (`id`, `username`, `attribute`, `op`, `value`) VALUES (1,'test','User-Password',':=','test');

Next test the test user with radtest.

radtest test test 127.0.0.1 0 mysecret

If you see “rad_recv: Access-Accept” then your installation is working fine.

If you have any problems with FreeRADIUS you can run FreeRADIUS in debug mode to help pinpoint any issues, to do that just do the following:

CentOS:

service radiusd stop

radiusd -X

Ubuntu:

service freeradius stop

freeradius -X

Now you can see in realtime if your authentication queries are actually reaching the server or the reasons why some users may be rejected authentication.