## ProFTPD and RADIUS

Some sites use the RADIUS protocol for authenticating users. For these sites, there is the `mod_radius` ProFTPD module.

Common Configurations First, let's start with the most basic `mod_radius` configuration, where we want to use the RADIUS server only for validating the user's password:

      <IfModule mod_radius.c>
        AuthOrder mod_radius.c mod_auth_unix.c mod_auth_file.c

        RadiusEngine on
        RadiusAuthServer localhost:1812 testing123 5
        RadiusLog /etc/proftpd/radius.log
      </IfModule>

Here, we have told `mod_radius` the IP address of the RADIUS server via the `RadiusAuthServer` directive, which includes the port, shared secret, and default timeout value (in seconds).

Since this configuration only uses the RADIUS server for validating the password, we still need to get the user's UID, GID, home directory, group membership, etc from somewhere. Thus we need the `AuthOrder` directive to tell `proftpd` to use the `mod_auth_unix` and `mod_auth_file` modules as well.

Using the above configuration, when a client connects and sends the `USER` and `PASS` FTP commands, the `mod_radius` module will send an `Access-Request` RADIUS packet to the RADIUS server, which will include the following attributes:

      Service-Type 8 (i.e. Authenticate-Only)
      User-Name username
      User-Password password
      NAS-Identifier "ftp"
      NAS-IP-Address (or NAS-IPv6-Address) server-ip-address
      NAS-Port server-port
      NAS-Port-Type 5 (i.e. Virtual)
      Calling-Station-Id client-ip-address

If the RADIUS server responds with an `Access-Accept` packet, then the login succeeds, and the FTP session is establish. If, on the other hand, the RADIUS server responds with `Access-Reject`, the login fails. (The `mod_radius` module does not currently support the `Access-Challenge` packet type.)

Now, let's examine a slightly more complex configuration, which enables the use of RADIUS accounting:

      <IfModule mod_radius.c>
        AuthOrder mod_radius.c mod_auth_unix.c mod_auth_file.c

        RadiusEngine on
        RadiusAuthServer localhost:1812 testing123 5
        RadiusAcctServer localhost:1813 testing123 5
        RadiusLog /etc/proftpd/radius.log
      </IfModule>

The additional directive here is the `RadiusAcctSerer` directive, which is quite similar to the `RadiusAuthServer` directive. The use of the `RadiusAcctServer` directive instructs `mod_radius` to use RADIUS accounting.

With this configuration, `mod_radius` will do the same as before. In addition, once the login has succeeded, `mod_radius` will send an `Accounting-Request` packet to the RADIUS accounting server which includes:

      User-Name username
      Acct-Status-Type 1 (i.e. Start)
      Acct-Session-Id session-pid
      Acct-Authentic 1 (i.e. Local)

Then, when the client disconnects, `mod_radius` sends another `Accounting-Request` packet, this time with a lot of information about the just-ended session:

      User-Name username
      Acct-Status-Type 2 (i.e. Stop)
      Acct-Session-Id session-pid
      Acct-Authentic 1 (i.e. Local)
      Acct-Session-Time session-duration
      Acct-Input-Octets bytes-in
      Acct-Output-Octets bytes-out

The above configurations are the most common, as RADIUS is normally used only as way of checking whether a client should be allowed to connect, based on username/password.

Sophisticated Configurations It is possible to use RADIUS as the sole means of user authentication, rather than just validating passwords. The `mod_radius` configuration to do so would look like:

      <IfModule mod_radius.c>
        AuthOrder mod_radius.c

        RadiusEngine on
        RadiusAuthServer localhost:1812 testing123 5
        RadiusAcctServer localhost:1813 testing123 5
        RadiusLog /etc/proftpd/radius.log

        # Use RADIUS Vendor-Specific Attributes (VSAs) for user details
        RadiusVendor Unix 4
        RadiusUserInfo $(10:1000) $(11:1000) $(12:/tmp) $(13:/bin/bash)
        RadiusGroupInfo $(14:users,ftpd) $(15:500,501)
      </IfModule>

The key difference here is the use of the `RadiusUserInfo` directive. Its appearance within the configuration is what instructs `mod_radius` to do more than just password validation. The `RadiusUserInfo` and `RadiusGroupInfo` directives together tell `mod_radius` where to find the necessary information about a user, such as the UID, GID, home directory, group membership, etc in the response packets from the RADIUS server.

To let the RADIUS server know that we are expecting it do more than just validate the password, the `Access-Request` packet will use a different `Service-Type` attribute. Now the packet will look like:

      Service-Type 1 (i.e. Login)
      User-Name username
      User-Password password
      NAS-Identifier "ftp"
      NAS-IP-Address (or NAS-IPv6-Address) server-ip-address
      NAS-Port server-port
      NAS-Port-Type 5 (i.e. Virtual)
      Calling-Station-Id client-ip-address

Upon receiving the `Access-Accept` packet, `mod_radius` will now look for specific attributes, bearing user details, within the packet. What attributes does it look for? Answer: Vendor-Specific Attributes (commonly called "VSAs").

Every VSA is prefixed with a vendor ID, followed by an attribute ID/value which are defined by that vendor. For example, Cisco has a vendor ID of 9, Microsoft has a vendor ID of 311, and "Unix" has a vendor ID of 4. (For the curious, these vendor IDs, per RFC 2865, Section 5.26, come from the IANA Enterprise Numbers registry.)

With this background, we can explain the `RadiusUserInfo` and `RadiusGroupInfo` directives in detail. Notice that we tell `mod_radius` the vendor ID to look for, using the `RadiusVendor` directive: RadiusVendor Unix 4 The above is actually not necessary; `mod_radius` will look for VSAs for vendor ID 4 (Unix) by default. It is useful, though, to make it explicitly visible in the configuration.

Let's now see just what the `RadiusUserInfo` parameters are doing:

      RadiusUserInfo $(10:1000) $(11:1000) $(12:/tmp) $(13:/bin/bash)

In order for `proftpd` to log a user in, it needs to know that user's UID, GID, home directory, and shell. And the `RadiusUserInfo` parameters say where to find those values, in that order.

For UIDs, "$(10:1000)" says to look for a vendor-specific attribute ID of 10. If we find such an attribute, use the attribute value as the UID. Otherwise, use 1000 as the UID for the user logging in.

For GIDs, "$(11:1000)" says to look for a vendor-specific attribute ID of 11. If we find such an attribute, use the attribute value as the GID. Otherwise, use 1000 as the GID for the user logging in.

For home directories, "$(12:/tmp)" says to look for a vendor-specific attribute ID of 12. If we find such an attribute, use the attribute value as the home directory. Otherwise, use /tmp as the home directory for the user logging in.

And for the shell, "$(13:/bin/bash)" says to look for a vendor-specific attribute ID of 13. If we find such an attribute, use the attribute value as the shell. Otherwise, use /bin/bash as the shell for the user logging in.

The `RadiusGroupInfo` directive is very similar: it tells `mod_radius` which VSAs will contain the group membership, both in terms of group IDs and group names, for the logging in user:

      RadiusGroupInfo $(14:users,ftpd) $(15:500,501)

For group names, "$(14:users,ftpd)" says to look for a vendor-specific attribute ID of 14. If we find such an attribute, use the attribute value as the comma-separated list of supplemental group names. Otherwise, use users,ftpd as the group names for the user logging in.

For group IDs, "$(15:500,501)" says to look for a vendor-specific attribute ID of 15. If we find such an attribute, use the attribute value as the comma-separated list of supplemental group IDs. Otherwise, use 500,501 as the group IDs for the user logging in.

FreeRADIUS Configuration
To help demonstrate how you would configure and use VSAs, I will show the FreeRADIUS configuration that I used for development and testing.

Here is the FreeRADIUS `dictionary.unix` file I used (slightly modified from the stock `dictionary.unix` file distributed with FreeRADIUS); this file defines the attributes supported for the "Unix" vendor:

      VENDOR          Unix    4

      BEGIN-VENDOR Unix

      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-UID            10      integer
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-GID            11      integer
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Home           12      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Shell          13      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Group-Names    14      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Group-Ids      15      string

      END-VENDOR Unix

You can see how:

      VENDOR          Unix    4

here corresponds to the `mod_radius` configuration line:

      RadiusVendor Unix 4

The following attribute IDs are what we use in our `mod_radius` directives:

      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-UID            10      integer
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-GID            11      integer
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Home           12      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Shell          13      string

which match up with our `RadiusUserInfo` parameters:

      RadiusUserInfo $(10:1000) $(11:1000) $(12:/tmp) $(13:/bin/bash)

Similarly for the group membership attributes, `dictionary.unix` has:

      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Group-Names    14      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-User-Group-Ids      15      string

and our `RadiusGroupInfo` parameters are:

      RadiusGroupInfo $(14:users,ftpd) $(15:500,501)

Note that only the IDs (numbers) for attributes are used in the RADIUS packets sent between clients/servers. The attribute names are to make the configuration and logging more human-readable.

Now, in order to tell FreeRADIUS that we want it to include those VSAs in its `Access-Accept` packet back to `mod_radius`, we have to modify the FreeRADIUS `users` file, like so:

      DEFAULT Auth-Type := System
              Unix-User-UID := 500,
              Unix-User-GID := 500,
              Unix-User-Home := "/home/tj",
              Unix-User-Shell := "/bin/bash",
              Unix-User-Group-Names := "radius,ftpd",
              Unix-User-Group-Ids := "200,501",
              Fall-Through = 1

See the FreeRADIUS documentation for the `users` file format in order to learn how to configure different UID/GID/home/group values for each user in that file.

Obtaining Quota Information via RADIUS
If you use the `mod_quotatab` module for quota support in `proftpd`, and you use the `mod_radius` module for authentication, then you might also be interesting in getting your quota information from your RADIUS server, much like you can get user details from the RADIUS server.

The mechanism is identical that used for user details, i.e. vendor-specific attributes (VSAs). Assuming that you are using FreeRADIUS, you would add the following to your FreeRADIUS `dictionary.unix` file:

      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Per-Session      106      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Limit-Type       107      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Bytes-Upload     108      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Bytes-Download   109      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Bytes-Transfer   110      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Files-Upload     111      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Files-Download   112      string
      ATTRIBUTE       Unix-FTP-Quota-Files-Transfer   113      string

and in the FreeRADIUS `users` file (assuming the above user-related attributes as well):

      DEFAULT Auth-Type := System
              Unix-User-UID := 500,
              Unix-User-GID := 500,
              Unix-User-Home := "/home/tj",
              Unix-User-Shell := "/bin/bash",
              Unix-User-Group-Names := "radius,ftpd",
              Unix-User-Group-Ids := "200,501",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Per-Session := "false",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Limit-Type := "soft",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Bytes-Upload := "1.1",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Bytes-Download := "2.2",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Bytes-Transfer := "3.3",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Files-Upload := "4",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Files-Download := "5",
              Unix-FTP-Quota-Files-Transfer := "6",
              Fall-Through = 1

and then, to tell `mod_radius` that it should look for quota-related VSAs in the `Access-Accept` RADIUS packet, there is the aptly-named `RadiusQuotaInfo` directive:

      RadiusQuotaInfo $(106:false) $(107:hard) $(108:40.0) $(109:0.0) $(110:0.0) $(111:0) $(112:0) $(113:0)

Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Do I have to configure my RADIUS server to return VSAs in order to use `mod_radius`?
Answer: No. As shown above, `mod_radius` is usually used just for validating user credentials.

It is also possible to use only `mod_radius` for user authentication, without needing VSAs. For example, using a configuration like this will do what you need:

      <IfModule mod_radius.c>
        AuthOrder mod_radius.c

        RadiusEngine on
        RadiusAuthServer localhost:1812 testing123 5
        RadiusAcctServer localhost:1813 testing123 5
        RadiusLog /etc/proftpd/radius.log

        RadiusUserInfo 1000 1000 /tmp /bin/bash
        RadiusGroupInfo ftpd 1000
      </IfModule>

Notice how the `RadiusUserInfo` and `RadiusGroupInfo` directives do not use the "$(N:M)" syntax? That means that we are not telling `mod_radius` what vendor ID and attribute IDs to look for. Instead, we are telling `mod_radius` to always use the configured UID, GID, home directory, shell, group membership values.

Note that this means that all of your logged-in users will have the exact same UID, GID, and home directory. For some sites, this is ideal. Other sites need to have different UID/GID/homes for each users, and thus they will use the VSA support.

Question: Can I use `mod_radius` for SFTP connections?
Answer: Yes. However, there are some caveats. The main issue that clients which want to use SSH publickey authentication cannot use RADIUS, since the RADIUS protocol does not define any means of conveying the public key information from the connecting client to the RADIUS server. So only password-based SSH authentication can be supported using `mod_radius`.

Last Updated: $Date: 2014-01-27 01:28:21 $