FreeRADIUS is a modular authentication, authorisation and accounting server implementing the RADIUS protocol. It provides centralised control over network access, allowing administrators to authenticate users, apply access policies and record information about network sessions.
The software is widely used in wireless networks, educational institutions, Internet service providers and enterprise environments. It can authenticate users connecting through 802.1X networks, VPNs, broadband services and other systems that communicate using RADIUS.
Its modular architecture allows administrators to combine different identity databases, authentication methods and policy rules. FreeRADIUS can also forward requests to other authentication servers, making it suitable for distributed networks and deployments spanning multiple organisations.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Centralised authentication, authorisation and accounting through RADIUS.
- Supports IEEE 802.1X authentication for wired and wireless networks.
- Extensive EAP support, including EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS and PEAP.
- Authentication against LDAP, Active Directory, SQL databases, PAM and local user records.
- Supports PAP, CHAP and other standard authentication mechanisms.
- Configurable policy processing using the unlang policy language.
- RADIUS request proxying with realm routing, failover and load balancing.
- Accounting records stored in SQL databases, text files or other configured backends.
- Virtual servers with separate authentication and accounting policies.
- Dynamic VLAN assignment and other network access attributes.
- Extensive dictionaries of vendor-specific RADIUS attributes.
- Support for IPv6 networks and compatible RADIUS clients.
- IP address allocation through configurable IP pools.
- Regular expression matching and conditional request processing.
- Integration with external programs and scripting languages through modules.
- Detailed debugging facilities for investigating authentication failures.
- Includes RADIUS client utilities for testing and administration.
- Designed to handle demanding workloads and large numbers of authentication requests.
Website: freeradius.org
Support:
Developer: FreeRADIUS Development Team
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
FreeRADIUS is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Network Authentication Servers | |
|---|---|
| Keycloak | Identity and Access Management solution for modern Applications and Services |
| FreeRADIUS | High-performance and highly configurable RADIUS server |
| Logto | Modern Auth0 alternative |
| RADIUSdesk | RADIUS management platform |
| Radius | Remote user authentication and accounting and accompanying utilities |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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