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Radiator Installation

Radiator is a well behaved Perl application, and installation is usually easy, but you will need to be prepared to spend some time configuring Radiator to suit your needs. You will need to be a competent system administrator in order to install Radiator. You will need to have a basic understanding of Radius and your system's authentication and accounting requirements in order to configure Radiator. You will need to have a basic understanding of SQL in order to configure AuthBy SQL (if you plan to use it). You will need to have a basic understanding of LDAP in order to configure AuthBy LDAP (if you plan to use it).

  • Wait for a user name and password to be sent to you by email.
  • Fetch radiator (user name and password required) and install it in a work directory. Get the .rpm file for Linux RPM installations. Get the self-extracting Zip file for Windows and the .tgz file for all other plaforms. Caution: Some web browsers, notably Windows Internet Explorer, change the filename extension of the downloaded file for example from Radiator-Locked-x.x.tgz to Radiator-Locked-x.x.tar. This changed filename extension confuses WinZip. The solution is to rename the downloaded file back to have the '.tgz' extension for example Radiator-Locked-x.x.tgz and then unpack it with WinZip. If you have problems downloading the software, please contact info@open.com.au.
  • Now go to Unix installation or Linux RPM installation or Mac OS X installation or Windows installation

Unix

  1. Make sure you are (or have access to) a system administrator and someone who understands your Radius authentication and accounting requirements.
  2. Obtain and install Perl 5 version 5.6.0 or better.
  3. Obtain and install Perl Digest-MD5 version 2.12 or later from your nearest CPAN archive.
  4. If you plan to use MS-CHAP or MS-CHAP2 authentication obtain and install Digest-MD4 from your nearest CPAN archive.
  5. If you plan to use SQL for authentication and/or accounting, obtain and install DBI (version 0.90 or better) and the DBD module for your selected database. DBD modules are available for many commercial, free and shareware RDBMSs. See your nearest CPAN archive.
  6. If you plan to use LDAP for authentication and/or accounting, obtain and install perl-ldap (version 0.22 or better) See your nearest CPAN archive.
  7. If you plan to use EAP TLS, TTLS or PEAP for 802.1x authentication obtain and install OpenSSL version 0.9.7 or later, and Net_SSLeay version 0.22 or later, Digest-HMAC version 1.01 or later and Digest-SHA1 version 2.01 or later from your nearest CPAN archive.
  8. If you plan to use the GUI interface to radpwtst obtain and install Perl Tk (version Tk800.002 or better) See your nearest CPAN archive.
  9. Unpack the distribution with gunzip -c Radiator-Demox.x.tgz|tar xvf -. You will need the Gnu Unix tool gunzip(1) to do this.
  10. Change to the distribution directory: cd Radiator-Demo-x.x
  11. perl Makefile.PL
  12. make test This is the regression test. You should see lots of lines saying "ok" and none saying "not ok".
  13. As a final test, run Radiator with a simple configuration file:
    • Run radiator with perl radiusd -config_file goodies/simple.cfg. This runs Radiator with logging turned on (so you can see whats happening), and authenticates all requests from the file users. You will see some messages, followed by INFO: Server started. Radiator is now waiting for requests to arrive.
    • In another window, change to your Radiator directory, and run the test application with:
      perl radpwtst -user fred -password fred
      You should see "OK".
    • Rerun radpwtst, this time with the wrong password from fred:
      perl radpwtst -user fred -password wrong
      You should see "Rejected".
    • If you configure a test NAS to use this server, you will able to log in as the user "fred" with password "fred".
  14. If all goes well, make install. This will install the Radius perl modules in your site-perl directory, and radiusd, radpwtst, builddbm and buildsql in your local executable directory.
  15. Now go to Configuration

Linux RPM

Linux users can easily install from an RPM binary package

  1. Make sure you are (or have access to) a system administrator and someone who understands your Radius authentication and accounting requirements.
  2. Log in as root
  3. Install the package with rpm -Uvh Radiator-Demo-x.x-x.noarch.rpm
  4. Start the server /etc/init.d/radiator start
  5. Test authentication radpwtst
  6. Edit /etc/radiator/radius.cfg to suit your site and needs. See the reference manual in /usr/share/doc/Radiator-Demo-x.x for more details.

Mac OS X

  1. See the detailed installation instructions in goodies/osx.txt in your Radiator distribution.

Windows

On Microsoft Windows, we recommend that you use ActivePerl from ActiveState, since it installs very easily, and many additional modules are available precompiled directly from ActiveState.

  1. Make sure you are (or have access to) a system administrator and someone who understands your Radius authentication and accounting requirements.
  2. Download and install ActivePerl version 5.6.1 or later. During installation, accept all the defaults. Allow setup to reboot your computer if it needs to.
  3. Connect your computer to the Internet so you will be able download any required Perl modules from ActiveState using PPM in the next section.
  4. Double click on c:\perl\bin\ppm (the Perl package manager). You will get a command line screen running ppm with a PPM> prompt.
  5. If you plan to use MS-CHAP or MS-CHAP2 authentication, type install Digest::MD4.
  6. If you plan to use SQL authentication, type install DBI to install the main DBI package. Then find the database specific module(s) you want by typing search DBD, then install the one(s) you need for your database. For example, if you want to use ODBC to connect to your database, type install DBD-ODBC
  7. If you plan to use LDAP authentication, type install perl-ldap.
  8. Close the PPM window. Perl is now installed.
  9. Download (username and password required) and run the self-extracting Radiator Zip file for Windows. Let it unpack to the default location, c:\Radiator (we will call this location the distribution directory).
  10. Start an MSDOS command window, change directories to the distribution directory.
  11. Type perl Makefile.PL. This will check that your distribution is complete.
  12. Run the regression tests with perl test.pl. You should see lots of lines like "ok xx", and none saying "not ok xx".
  13. Install Radiator with perl Makefile.PL install. This will install the Radiator programs and libraries in the standard places, and will create a basic Radiator configuration file in C:\Program Files\Radiator\radius.cfg and a sample users file in C:\Program Files\Radiator\users.
  14. Now test Radiator with the sample configuration file in c:\Program Files\Radiator\radius.cfg which authenticates all requests from the file C:\Program Files\Radiator\users, and logs extensively to C:\Program Files\Radiator\logfile
    • Run radiator with
      perl c:\perl\bin\radiusd
      You will see some messages, followed by INFO: Server started. Radiator is now waiting for requests to arrive.
    • In another command window run the test client program with:
      perl c:\perl\bin\radpwtst -user mikem -password fred
      You should see "OK".
    • Rerun radpwtst, this time with the wrong password for mikem:
      perl radpwtst -user mikem -password wrong
      You should see "Rejected".
    • If you configure a test NAS to use this server, you will able to log in as the user "mikem" with password "fred".
  15. To optionally arrange for Radiator to be run as a service automatically at boot time, see the Radiator Reference Manual
  16. Now go to Configuration

Configuration

Now that Radiator is installed and you know that it is working properly, you need to configure it to suit your own local needs. Radiator uses a configuration file to tell it important things like which NASs it will talk to, and how to handle authentication and accounting requests from those NASs. Radiator has a large number of ways to handle authorisation and accounting. You will have to create a configuration file for your site. Because your needs will almost certainly be different from anyone else, you will need to spend some time building and testing it.

  1. Read the configuration reference manual
  2. Check the example configuration files in the goodies directory. You might find one that suits your needs very closely.
  3. Create and edit a configuration file. We suggest you start with a very simple config file such as the the one in goodies/radius.cfg. Add extra features as you go.
  4. Run radiusd by hand, and test it with radpwtst until you are sure it is configured the way you need for your site. You may want to specify your config file with -config_file filename.
  5. When you are sure Radiator is configured the way you want, arrange for radiusd to start automatically at boot time (see the reference manual for details of different ways to do this for different platforms)
  6. Join the Radiator Free Mailing List. This will allow you to exchange help and information with other Radiator owners.

Additional Resources

  • If you want to use Simultaneous-Use checking with USR Total Control, you can get a copy of the pmwho program from here.
  • There is a complete archive of the Radiatorfree mailing list.
  • Documentation is available online

Demo Live CD

The Demo Live CD is a bootable Slax Linux CD which allows you to test-drive Radiator on almost any PC without installing anything to your hard disk. It includes evaluation versions of Radiator, RAdmin and Radar preconfigured and working right out of the box.

Requirements

  1. Almost any Intel x86 based PC with
  2. 128MB RAM and
  3. CD-ROM drive and
  4. Network card and network connection (optional)
  5. Any computer with a CD-ROM burner to burn the CD.

Procedure

  1. Download the CD ISO image from the Evaluation Downloads page (username and password required).
  2. Burn the ISO image to a CD, using any suitable program such as Nero on Windows or cdrecord on Linux.
  3. Ensire the test PC BIOS is config7ured to boot from CD
  4. Insert the CD into the test PC
  5. Reboot the test PC

The PC will boot the Radiator Demo Live CD, running Slax Linux, complete with graphical user interface allowing access to RAdmin and Radar. It will not affect your hard disk, and nothing will be permanently installed. Radiator will already be running as as server, ready to receive requests from any RADIUS client on the local network. Use the RAdmin icon on the desktop to view and modify the RADIUS user databse, and use the Radar link on the desktop to monitor the Radiator server, view statistics etc.

Hints

  • The Radiator Demo Live CD is based on the Slax Linux distribution. If the Live CD fails to boot properly, consult the Slax documentation, especially the cheatcodes, which allow you to modify the options Slax uses when booting. These can be useful if some hardware on the test PC is causing problems during boot.
  • If you need to find out the DHCP address allocated to the test PC, or to change the IP address, click on the 'K" menu in the bottom left corner, then choose Internet->Set IP address.
  • The demo Radiator server will serve up to 1000 RADIUS requests. If you wish to continue testing after that, you will need to reboot the Radiator Demo Live CD.
  • The default configuration on the Demo Live CD will accept RADIUS requests from any RADIUS client on the local network, using the RADIUS shared secret of 'mysecret'. The test username 'mikem', with password 'fred' is already configured into the RADIUS user database. It will work with PAP, CHAP, MSCHAPV1 and MSCHAPV2 requests.
  • Because this is a live CD, all programs load from the CD, and so performance will be a bit slower than with a real installation.

If you have trouble

Before you post to the free mailing list asking for assistance, we suggest you go through the following check list:

  1. If you have trouble downloading the software, please contact info@open.com.au.
  2. Consult the Reference Manual.
  3. Consult the FAQ for extra hints.
  4. Check that you are using the latest version of Radiator. See http://www.open.com.au/radiator/downloads, use the username and password we have issued to you. Upgrade if you need to.
  5. If you still have the problem post to the free mailing list by mailing to radiator@open.com.au (you will need to subscribe before first posting to that list) Be sure to include at least the following information:
    • A detailed description of the problem.
    • Your Radiator configuration file (remove any secrets and passwords first).
    • An extract from your Radiator log file (with Trace level of 4) illustrating the problem, or at least what is happening at the time of the problem.
    • Details of the computer type, operating system etc.

This information helps people to understand your problem and help find a solution more quickly. If you have a support contract, you may email us at radiator-support@open.com.au. Mail to this address will be ignored unless you have a support contract.