mod_radius

Name

mod_radius -- RADIUS based authentication support

Synopsis

mod_radius

Description

This module provides RADIUS authentication and accounting support.

Strong authentication is in demand for Internet services. For many, this means using the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) protocol.

However, there are caveats to using RADIUS for authentication. RADIUS packets are sent in the clear, which means that they can easily be sniffed. First, do not have your authenticating RADIUS servers exposed to the Internet; keep them protected within your LAN. Second, it is highly recommended to use separate RADIUS servers for each of your services.

RADIUS Authentication

The RADIUS protocol can be used for answering the question "Should this user be allowed to login?" However, the "yes/no" answer is not everything that proftpd needs to log a user in; the server also requires the UID and GID to use for the authenticated user, home directory, and shell. This information is usually not available from the RADIUS servers, which means that using RADIUS to provide all the necessary login information can be problematic. The RadiusUserInfo directive is meant to be used to address this issue, to provide the missing information.

In those cases where the RADIUS servers can provide that additional login information, via custom attributes, the RadiusUserInfo directive can also be used obtain that information as well.

RADIUS Accounting

While RADIUS is primarily used for authentication, the protocol also allows for accounting of user activities. The mod_radius module makes use of this ability, using RADIUS accounting packets to transmit the following data:

* Acct-Authentic: How the user was authenticated (e.g. locally, or via RADIUS) * Acct-Session-Id: The process ID of the FTP session * Acct-Session-Time: The duration of the FTP session, in seconds * Acct-Input-Octets: The number of bytes uploaded (includes appending to files) * Acct-Output-Octets: The number of bytes downloaded Merely configuring a RadiusAcctServer enables the module's accounting capabilities. Common Attributes The following RADIUS attributes are sent with every RADIUS packet generated by mod_radius: * User-Name: The name of the logging-in user * NAS-Identifier: Always "ftp" * NAS-IP-Address: IP address of FTP server * NAS-Port: Port of FTP server * NAS-Port-Type: Always Virtual. * Calling-Station-Id: IP address of connecting FTP client

See also

RadiusAcctServer RadiusAuthServer RadiusEngine RadiusLog RadiusRealm RadiusUserInfo