1. Auth_radius Module

Jan Janak

FhG Fokus

Juha Heinanen

Song Networks

Stelios Sidiroglou-Douskos


1.1. Overview
1.2. Dependencies
1.3. Parameters
1.3.1. radius_config (string)
1.3.2. service_type (integer)
1.3.3. use_ruri_flag (integer)
1.4. Functions
1.4.1. radius_www_authorize(realm)
1.4.2. radius_proxy_authorize(realm)

1.1. Overview

This module contains functions that are used to perform authentication using a Radius server. Basically the proxy will pass along the credentials to the radius server which will in turn send a reply containing result of the authentication. So basically the whole authentication is done in the Radius server. Before sending the request to the radius server we perform some sanity checks over the credentials to make sure that only well formed credentials will get to the server. We have implemented radius authentication according to draft-sterman-aaa-sip-00. This module requires radiusclient library version 0.5.0 or higher which is available from http://developer.berlios.de/projects/radiusclient-ng/.

1.2. Dependencies

The module depends on the following modules (in the other words the listed modules must be loaded before this module):

  • auth.  Generic authentication functions.

1.3. Parameters

1.3.1. radius_config (string)

This is the location of the configuration file of radius client libraries.

Default value is "/usr/local/etc/radiusclient/radiusclient.conf".

Example 1. radius_config parameter usage

modparam("auth_radius", "radius_config", "/etc/radiusclient.conf")

1.3.2. service_type (integer)

This is the value of the Service-Type radius attribute to be used. The default should be fine for most people. See your radius client include files for numbers to be put in this parameter if you need to change it.

Default value is "15".

Example 2. service_type usage

modparam("auth_radius", "service_type", 15)

1.3.3. use_ruri_flag (integer)

When this parameter is set to the value other than "-1" and the request being authenticated has flag with matching number set via setflag() function, use Request URI instead of uri parameter value from the Authorization / Proxy-Authorization header field to perform RADIUS authentication. This is intended to provide workaround for misbehaving NAT / routers / ALGs that alter request in the transit, breaking authentication. At the time of this writing, certain versions of Linksys WRT54GL are known to do that.

Default value is "-1".

Example 3. use_ruri_flag usage

modparam("auth_radius", "use_ruri_flag", 22)

1.4. Functions

1.4.1. radius_www_authorize(realm)

The function verifies credentials according to RFC2617. If the credentials are verified successfully then the function will succeed and mark the credentials as authorized (marked credentials can be later used by some other functions). If the function was unable to verify the credentials for some reason then it will fail and the script should call www_challenge which will challenge the user again.

This function will, in fact, perform sanity checks over the received credentials and then pass them along to the radius server which will verify the credentials and return whether they are valid or not.

Meaning of the parameter is as follows:

  • realm - Realm is a opaque string that the user agent should present to the user so he can decide what username and password to use. Usually this is domain of the host the server is running on.

    If an empty string "" is used then the server will generate it from the request. In case of REGISTER requests To header field domain will be used (because this header field represents a user being registered), for all other messages From header field domain will be used.

Example 4. radius_www_authorize usage

...
if (!radius_www_authorize("iptel.org")) {
    www_challenge("iptel.org", "1");
};
...

1.4.2. radius_proxy_authorize(realm)

The function verifies credentials according to RFC2617. If the credentials are verified successfully then the function will succeed and mark the credentials as authorized (marked credentials can be later used by some other functions). If the function was unable to verify the credentials for some reason then it will fail and the script should call proxy_challenge which will challenge the user again.

This function will, in fact, perform sanity checks over the received credentials and then pass them along to the radius server which will verify the credentials and return whether they are valid or not.

Meaning of the parameter is as follows:

  • realm - Realm is a opaque string that the user agent should present to the user so he can decide what username and password to use. Usually this is domain of the host the server is running on.

    If an empty string "" is used then the server will generate it from the request. From header field domain will be used as realm.

Example 5. proxy_authorize usage

...
if (!radius_proxy_authorize("")) {
    proxy_challenge("", "1");  # Realm will be autogenerated
};
...