Upgrading from v2 to v3

The SQL configuration has been moved from sql.conf to mods-available/sql. The sqlippool.conf file has also been moved to mods-available/sqlippool.

The SQL module configuration has been changed. The old connection pool options are no longer accepted:

Instead, a connection pool configuration is used. This configuration contains all of the functionality of the previous configuration, but in a more generic form. It also is used in multiple modules, meaning that there are fewer different configuration items. The mapping between the configuration items is:

The pool configuration adds a number of new configuration options, which allow the administrator to better control how FreeRADIUS uses SQL connection pools.

The following parameters have been changed:

The logfile is intended to log SQL queries performed. If you need to debug the server, use debugging mode. If logfile is set, then all SQL queries will go to logfile.

You can now use a NULL SQL database:

This is an empty driver which will always return "success". It is intended to be used to replace the sql_log module, and to work in conjunction with the radsqlrelay program. Simply take your normal configuration for raddb/mods-enabled/sql, and set:

All of the SQL queries will be logged to that file. The connection pool does not need to be configured for the null SQL driver. It can be left as-is, or deleted from the SQL configuration file.

The rlm_sql_sybase module has been renamed to rlm_sql_freetds and the old rlm_sql_freetds module has been removed.

rlm_sql_sybase used the newer ct-lib API, and rlm_sql_freetds used an older API and was incomplete.

The new rlm_sql_freetds module now also supports database selection on connection startup so use statements no longer have to be included in queries.

Queries for post-auth and accounting calls have been re-arranged. The SQL module will now expand the 'reference' configuration item in the appropriate sub-section, and resolve this to a configuration item. This behaviour is similar to rlm_linelog. This dynamic expansion allows for a dynamic mapping between accounting types and SQL queries. Previously, the mapping was fixed. Any "new" accounting type was ignored by the module. Now, support for any accounting type can be added by just adding a new target, as below.

Queries from v2.x.x may be manually copied to the new v3.0 dialup.conf file (raddb/sql/main/<dialect>/queries.conf). When doing this you may also need to update references to the accounting tables, as their definitions will now be outside of the subsection containing the query.

The mapping from old "fixed" query to new "dynamic" query is as follows:

Alternatively a 2.x.x config may be patched to work with the 3.0 module by adding the following:

In general, it is safer to migrate the configuration rather than trying to "patch" it, to make it look like a v2 configuration.

Note that the sub-sections holding the queries are labelled accounting-on, and not accounting_on. The reason is that the names of these sections are taken directly from the Accounting-Request packet, and the Acct-Status-Type field. The sql module looks at the value of that field, and then looks for a section of that name, in order to find the query to use.

That process means that the server can be extended to support any new value of Acct-Status-Type, simply by adding a named sub-section, and a query. This behavior is preferable to that of v2, which had hard-coded queries for certain Acct-Status-Type values, and was ignored all other values.

The LDAP module configuration has been substantially changed. Please read raddb/mods-available/ldap. It now uses a connection pool, just like the SQL module.

Many of the configuration items remain the same, but they have been moved into subsections. This change is largely cosmetic, but it makes the configuration clearer. Instead of having a large set of random configuration items, they are now organized into logical groups.

You will need to read your old LDAP configuration, and migrate it manually to the new configuration. Simply copying the old configuration WILL NOT WORK.

Users upgrading from 2.x.x who used to call the ldap module in post-auth should now set edir_autz = yes, and remove the ldap module from the post-auth section.

In 2.x.x the registration of the LDAP-Group pair comparison was done by the last instance of rlm_ldap to be instantiated. In 3.0 this has changed so that only the default ldap {} instance registers LDAP-Group.

If <instance>-LDAP-Group is already used throughout your configuration no changes will be needed.

In 2.x.x the LDAP module had a set_auth_type configuration item, which forced Auth-Type := ldap. This was removed in 3.x.x as it often did not work, and was not consistent with the rest of the server. We generally recommend that LDAP should be used as a database, and that FreeRADIUS should do authentication.

The only reason to use Auth-Type := ldap is when the LDAP server will not supply the "known good" password to FreeRADIUS, and where the Access-Request contains User-Password. This situation happens only for Active Directory. If you think you need to force Auth-Type := ldap in other situations, you are very likely to be wrong.

The following is an example of what should be inserted into the authorize {} and authenticate {} sections of the relevant virtual-servers, to get functionality equivalent to v2.x:

The EAP configuration has been moved from eap.conf to mods-available/eap. A new pwd subsection has been added for EAP-PWD.

The rlm_expiration and rlm_logintime modules no longer add a Reply-Message, the same behaviour can be achieved checking the return code of the module and adding the Reply-Message with unlang:

The unix module does not have an authenticate section. So you cannot set Auth-Type := System. The unix module has also been deleted from the examples in sites-available/. Listing it there has been deprecated for many years.

The PAP module can do crypt authentication. It should be used instead of Unix authentication.

The Unix module still can pull the passwords from /etc/passwd, or /etc/shadow. This is done by listing it in the authorize section, as is done in the examples in sites-available/. However, some systems using NIS or NSS will not supply passwords to the unix module. For those systems, we recommend putting users and passwords into a database, instead of relying on /etc/passwd.

In 2.x.x huntroups and users files were loaded from default locations without being configured explicitly. Since 3.x.x you need to set huntgroups and users configuration item(s) in module section in order to get them being processed.

Instances of rlm_date register an xlat method which can translate integer and date values to an arbitrarily formatted date time string, or an arbitrarily formated time string to an integer, depending on the attribute type passed.

The rest module is used to translate RADIUS requests into RESTfull HTTP requests. Currently supported body types are JSON and POST.

The unpack module is used to turn data buried inside of binary attributes. e.g. if we have Class = 0x00000001020304 then:

will unpack octets 4 and 5 as a "short", which has value 0x0304. All integers are assumed to be in network byte order.

The yubikey module can be used to forward yubikey OTP token values to a Yubico validation server, or decrypt the token using a PSK.

This module has been replaced by the "acct_unique" policy. See raddb/policy.d/accounting.

The method for calculating the value of acct_unique has changed. However, as this method was configurable, this change should not matter. The only issue is in having a v2 and v3 server writing to the same database at the same time. They will calculate different values for Acct-Unique-Id.

You should use rlm_linelog instead. That module has a superset of the acctlog functionality.

The attr_rewrite module looked for an attribute, and then re-wrote it, or created a new attribute. All of that can be done in "unlang".

A sample configuration in "unlang" is:

We suggest updating all uses of attr_rewrite to use unlang instead.

The checkval module compared two attributes. All of that can be done in "unlang":

We suggest updating all uses of checkval to use unlang instead.

No one seems to use it. There is no sample configuration for it. There is no speed advantage to using it over the "files" module. Modern systems are fast enough that 10K entries can be read from the "users" file in about 10ms. If you need more users than that, use a real database such as SQL.

No one seems to use it. It has been deprecated since Version 2.0.0. The "files" module was rewritten so that the "fastusers" module was no longer necessary.

No one seems to use it. Almost all of its functionality is available via unlang.

The rlm_sim_files module has been deleted. It was never marked "stable", and was never used in a production environment. There are better ways to test EAP.

If you want similar functionality, see rlm_passwd. It can read CSV files, and create attributes from them.

This has been replaced with the "null" sql driver. See raddb/mods-available/sql for an example configuration.

The main SQL module has more functionality than rlm_sql_log, and results in less code in the server.

RadSec (or RADIUS over TLS) is now supported. RADIUS over bare TCP is also supported, but is recommended only for secure networks.

See sites-available/tls for complete details on using TLS. The server can both receive incoming TLS connections, and also originate outgoing TLS connections.

The TLS configuration is taken from the old EAP-TLS configuration. It is largely identical to the old EAP-TLS configuration, so it should be simple to use and configure. It re-uses much of the EAP-TLS code, so it is well-tested and reliable.

Once RadSec is enabled, normal debugging mode will not work. This is because the TLS code requires threading to work properly. Instead of doing:

you will need to do:

That’s the price to pay for using RadSec. This limitation may be lifted in a future version of the server.

From version 3.0 onwards the server no longer supports authenticating against a cleartext password in the 'User-Password' attribute. Any occurences of this (for instance, in the users file) should now be changed to 'Cleartext-Password' instead.

e.g. change entries like this:

to ones like this:

If this is not done, authentication will likely fail. The server will also print a helpful message in debugging mode.

If it really is impossible to do this, the following unlang inserted above the call to the pap module may be used to copy User-Password to the correct attribute:

However, this should only be seen as a temporary, not permanent, fix. It is better to fix your databases to use the correct configuration.

Many more errors are caught when the server is starting up. Syntax errors in unlang are caught, and a helpful error message is printed. The error message points to the exact place where the error occurred:

update sections are more generic. Instead of doing update reply, you can do the following:

This change means that you need fewer update sections.

Attribute comparisons can be done via the & operator. When you needed to compare two attributes, the old comparison style was:

This syntax is inefficient, as the Tmp-String-0 attribute would be printed to an intermediate string, causing unnecessary work. You can now instead compare the two attributes directly:

See man unlang for more details.

Casts are now permitted. This allows you to force type-specific comparisons:

This forces the string returned by the SELECT to be treated as an IP address, and compare to 127.0.0.1. Previously, the comparison would have been done as a simple string comparison.

IP networks are now supported:

Will be true. The various comparison operators can be used to check IP network membership::

Returns true, because 127.0.0.1 is within the 127/8 network. However, the following comparison will return false::

because 192.168.0.1 is outside of the 127/8 network.

As unlang is now pre-compiled, many compile-time optimizations are done. This means that the debug output may not be exactly the same as what is in the configuration files:

The result will always be false, as the if 0 prevents the following && …​ from being evaluated.

Not only that, but the entire contents of that section will be ignored entirely:

In v2, that configuration would result in a parse error, as there is no module called this_module_does_not_exist. In v3, that text is ignored. This ability allows you to have dynamic configurations where certain parts are used (or not) depending on compile-time configuration.

Similarly, conditions which always evaluate to true will be optimized away:

That configuration will never show the if (1) output in debugging mode.

The dialup_admin directory has been removed. No one stepped forward to maintain it, and the code had not been changed in many years.