Hello, all Apologies in advance if this isn't the right forum for this, or if it's already been answered somewhere, and my Google-fu just isn't up to the task. Please point me in the right direction if either is the case.
I've managed to get a FreeRadius instance up that will authenticate a user's logon into a HP ProCurve switch against our Active Directory using PAP. I'm now trying to get PCs to authenticate to that switch using 802.1x/PEAP-MSCHAPv2. In trying to get this step working, I'm trying to understand how all the various config files and modules all fit together, so that I can understand how to properly setup FreeRadius. I've read through the config files and the Wiki pages, but I'm still not entirely clear that I understand it all, so I'm hoping someone can correct me if I'm on the wrong track. The process below is based on the default install that came with my distro (Gentoo), in case it differs from other distros. The config I'm currently using has been modified from this, of course, but as I'm more interested right now in how it fits together, I figured I'd start with the default config. 1) When a RADIUS request gets received by the server, it first looks up the device in the clients.conf file. If it doesn't exist there, it ignores the request (with a message being logged saying it ignored the request). 2) If it has the client listed in clients.conf, it then runs the request through the sites-enabled/default file. That file seems to say, starting with the authorize section, run it through the preprocess module, then chap, mschap, suffix, eap, unix, files, expiration, logintime and finally, pap. This is where things start to get a bit blurry for me. I understand that the preprocess module is rlm_preprocess, and that the config lives in modules/preprocess, where I can read a description of that module and what it does. Likewise for chap and mschap. However, suffix doesn't appear to be a module; where'd this come from, and what does it do? There also appear to be some modules in /usr/lib64/rlm_* that appear to have neither a man page, nor a config file in the modules directory, nor any sort of description in the Configuration Files section of the Wiki page. 3) The chap, mschap and eap modules seem to all look at the request and decide if the request is using any of these. If so, they add "Auth-Type := <one of them>" to the config item list. The eap module isn't configured under the modules directory, but in the root directory in eap.conf, the others in their respective file in the modules directory. 4) Given the information in the config items, it tries match the request against the unix and files modules, and add/modify config items appropriately. The "files" module is configured by default to read in the entries from the users file, where I should add "DEFAULT" entries to match the various types of authentication and authorization I'm trying to configure. In there, if it matches against any ruleset, it adds the reply items to the request. 5) It then runs the config items against the expiration and logintime modules, which checks the Expiration attribute and some Time attributes for authorization limitations. 6) It finally runs it through the PAP module to see if it's a PAP request, and adds "Auth-Type := PAP" to the config items. Where do the rest of the attributes that get sent with the packet get added to the config item list? Does that happen first? Does that happen later? Or is the incoming request with all its attributes immediately turned into a list of config items? None of the modules listed seem to say they parse the request and add the request's attributes to the config items. After all this, it then runs through the authenticate section of the sites-enable/default file, where it does the user/password checking: 1) It checks to see if the Auth-Type is PAP, CHAP, or MS-CHAP, and then runs them through the appropriate module. 2) It runs the request through the unix module 3) It runs it through the eap module (again, configured in eap.conf) At some point, (I believe in both the authorize and authentication sections, in the eap module), if it finds that a request is using PEAP, it does much the same thing again, but runs the inner "data/packet/encryption/not sure what to call it here" through the sites-enabled/inner-tunnel file, with sections set up similarly to the sites-enabled/default file. Then there are the session and post-auth sections, that I haven't even begun to look into yet; I hope to shortly. I'm skipping the accounting and proxy sections as for the moment, I'm just trying to get RADIUS authentication and authorization working, no accounting or proxying happening. Any assistance would be appreciated. John H. Moe Network Support - Hatch IT HATCH Tel: +61 (7) 3166 7777 Direct: +61 (7) 3166 7684 Fax: +61 (7) 3368 3754 Mobile: +61 438 772 425 61 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland Australia 4011 ***************************** NOTICE - This message from Hatch is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information which is privileged, confidential or proprietary. Internet communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, arrive late or contain viruses. By communicating with us via e-mail, you accept such risks. 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