Difference between revisions of "pam radius for ssh guide"

Revision as of 14:13, 15 October 2017

version info for this guide

gentoo package names and versions:
sys-libs/pam version 1.2.1
sys-auth/pam_radius version 1.3.17-r1
net-dialup/freeradius 3.0.14

configuring the radius server(freeradius)

1) install freeradius via your distributions package manager 2) define radius client in /etc/raddb/clients.conf
example syntax...

client NAME {
 ipaddr = IPADDRESS
 secret = SECRET
}

3) Define a User and Password in /etc/raddb/users

I don't like cleartext passwords, so I used an encrypted hash as follows...

# radcrypt --md5 abc123
$1$orQvjGWz$wkQftz9uR4nmvT5V6vD7.0

where abc123 is an example password

the user jsmith was configured to utilize this password hash by adding a line to /etc/raddb/users

jsmith Crypt-Password := "$1$orQvjGWz$wkQftz9uR4nmvT5V6vD7.0"

4) start your radius server via your distro's mechanism

for gentoo it is /etc/init.d/radiusd start

configure the radius client

we will reconfigure pam to use the pam_radius module for sshd authentication

1) install the pam_radius module for your distro 2) configure pam to use radius module by editing /etc/pamd.d/sshd file

add a line as that reads...

auth    sufficient      pam_radius_auth.so

my example file reads(after editing)...

auth sufficient pam_radius_auth.so
auth include system-remote-login
account include system-remote-login
password include system-remote-login
session include system-remote-login

then restart sshd

This configuration example is a work in progress. It required the user account to exist locally. The account line above requires it. It also allows you to still login with local credentials.

for more info on how the pam configuration files work, read the pam manpage

troubleshooting

Alan DeKok-2 is right. I had the same problem. The issue was that pam does multiple checks when you login. In my case, these are controlled by pam.d/sshd because I am trying to authenticate ssh.

specifically this check... account, which checks for validity of the user account.

from the line that reads... account include system-remote-login

What happens is the system checks to see if the account exists in preauth. Somehow that fails and my password is set to a string including "INCORRECT". When I create the account locally with useradd, then radius auth began succeeding. Next, I will look into a way to get around creating a local account.

pam version...

sys-libs/pam Installed versions: 1.2.1

links

[1] [2] [3]