6.3 Using the clients.conf File

In Chapter 5, I configured a very basic FreeRADIUS system using the plain-vanilla clients file. That file is obsolesced by the more flexible clients.conf file. It's very simple to configure, however.

There are two types of entries in the clients.conf file: clients and NASes, or more generally, RADIUS client equipment. Clients are standard requestors used in most authentication scenarios. In the case of a client entry, the canonical name or IP address of the original source request will be matched to an entry in the clients.conf file, and the secret will be compared to verify the integrity of the request. A NAS entry is used for all RADIUS client equipment where it's actually a NAS or another type of client. The NAS entry changes the criteria by which request information is compared to an entry: NAS entries use the NAS-IP-Address attribute in the original source request to match the appropriate entry and then progress to the NAS-Ident attribute.

A sample complete clients.conf entry shown here:

client 172.16.1.55 {
    secret      = donttellanyone
    shortname   = totalcontrol
    vendor      = 3comusr
    type        = tc
    login       = !root
    password    = changeme
nas 172.16.1.66 {
    secret      = iamanas
    shortname   = max6000
    vendor      = lucent
    type        = ascend
    login       = !root
    password    = changeme