1. INTRODUCTION The FreeRADIUS Server Project is a high performance and highly configurable GPL'd free RADIUS server. It is stable, and is currently being used in many deployments with millions of users. Please see the main web page (http://www.freeradius.org) for more information. 2. INSTALLATION To install the server, please see the INSTALL file in this directory. The differences between 1.0.x and 1.1.0 are documented in the file doc/ChangeLog. What these differences mean for an administrator upgrading from 1.0.x are as follows: * You MUST use the new dictionaries. This is NOT done by default, because you may have edited the installed version of /etc/raddb/dictionary. If you have not edited /etc/raddb/dictionary, then you can make the server use the new dictionaries by copying the raddb/dictionary file from this directory to /etc/raddb. Without this change, the server WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY. * Sites using SQL for logging should look into using the new rlm_sql_log module. See it's "man" page for details. * Sites using rlm_x99_token will have to update their configuration to use rlm_otp. 3. DEBUGGING THE SERVER Run the server in debugging mode, (radiusd -X) and READ the output. We really can't emphasize this enough. Read the FAQ. Many questions are answered there. Read the configuration files. Many parts of the server have NO documentation, other than comments in the configuration file. Search the mailing lists. There is a Google link on the bottom of the page: http://www.freeradius.org/list/users.html Type some key words into the search box, and you should find discussions about common problems and solution. See the Wiki http://wiki.freeradius.org 4. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION See 'doc/README' for more information about FreeRADIUS. There is now an O'Reilly book available, which we recommend for people new to RADIUS. It covers an earlier version of the server, but much of the information is applicable to this version also. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596003226/freeradiusorg-20/ It contains information about RADIUS in general, and FreeRADIUS in particular. For other RADIUS information, the Livington internet site had a lot of information on radius online. Unfortunately Livingston, and the site, don't exist anymore but there's a copy of the site still at: http://portmasters.com/www.livingston.com/ Especially worth a read is the "RADIUS for Unix administrators guide" HTML: http://portmasters.com/tech/docs/radius/1185title.html PDF: http://portmasters.com/tech/docs/pdf/radius.pdf 5. PROBLEMS AND CONCERNS We understand that the server may be difficult to configure, install, or administer. It is, after all, a complex system with many different configuration possibilities. If you have any comments, bug reports, problems, or concerns, please send them to the 'freeradius-users' list (see the URL above). We will do our best to answer your questions, to fix the problems, and to generally improve the server in any way we can. What you should NOT do is complain that the developers aren't answering your questions quickly enough, or fixing the problems quickly enough, or that they're being mean for telling you to do some work yourself. FreeRADIUS is the cumulative effort of many years of work by many people, and you've gotten it for free. No one gets paid to work on FreeRADIUS, and no one is getting paid to answer your questions. This is free software, and the only way it gets better is if you contribute work back to the project. We will note that the people who complain the loudest about the developers being mean usually can't program, can't write documentation, won't pay others to do that work, demand that their every desire be satisifed immediately by the developers for free, and worst of all, don't understand why their attitude is unproductive. They seem to believe that because they've received something (the server) for free, that they have every right to demand more free support and development from the list. That's simply not true. So please submit bug reports, suggestions, or patches. That feedback gives the developers a guide as to where they should focus their work. If you like the server, feel free to mail the list and say so.