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Installing FreeRadius

1 March 2021Category : #IT Pro/DevOps #OpenSource #Identity

Series : Implementing 802.1x with Azure AD

Guide to installing an alternative Radius service, for those who may have implemented Windows NPS Server - License Free and Open Source, Enterprise Ready

FreeRADIUS is an open source, high-performance, modular, scalable and feature-rich RADIUS server. It ships with both server and radius client, development libraries and numerous additional RADIUS related utilities, for Linux

FreeRADIUS supports request proxying, with fail-over and load balancing, as well as the ability to access many types of back-end databases.

RADIUS, which stands for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service, is a network protocol used for remote user authentication and accounting. It provides AAA services; namely Authorization, Authentication, and Accounting.

FreeRadius

You can view versions of FreeRadius available in your Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt policy freeradius
freeradius:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.0.16+dfsg-1ubuntu3.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.16+dfsg-1ubuntu3.1 500
        500 http://azure.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.16+dfsg-1ubuntu3 500
        500 http://azure.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages

Install FreeRadius packages from official Ubuntu APT repository with the commands below:

sudo apt -y install freeradius freeradius-mysql freeradius-utils

Among the packages installed are mysql module and utils package.

FreeRadius ‘Network Radius’ Repositories

However, the Ubuntu 18.04 version of FreeRadius is 3.016, and has some issues which will essentially block our progress. We can use the official packages to deploy the current release of the service, at the time of writing this is 3.0.23

Read more here: https://networkradius.com/packages/

Ubuntu Bionic 18.04

Add to your apt source list /etc/apt/sources.list

echo "deb http://packages.networkradius.com/releases/ubuntu-bionic bionic main" | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/networkradius.list > /dev/null

Ubuntu Focal 20.04

Add to your apt source list /etc/apt/sources.list

echo "deb http://packages.networkradius.com/releases/ubuntu-focal focal main" | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/networkradius.list > /dev/null

Trust the Repository

Now, we need to trust this new repository, and then update the applications database, before we finally upgrade FreeRadius

curl -s 'https://packages.networkradius.com/pgp/packages%40networkradius.com' | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/packages.networkradius.com.asc > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update

Install FreeRadius from NetworkRadius Repo’s

Install FreeRadius packages from official NetworkRadius APT repository with the commands below:

sudo apt -y install freeradius freeradius-mysql freeradius-utils

Damian Flynn

I define myself as an evangelist; an entrepreneur & author with an ideology rooted in business insights, technology exploration, pattern analysis and high energy. I envision, theorize and develop system architecture and strategic business platforms, soaked in storytelling and innovative technology.