One possible reason could be that the user you are building the radius server as does not have the appropriate file system permissions to create files within the /usr/local directory. I should have stated that i am logged in and running this as root. You can also get the FreeRADIUS RPMs for SLES 8 or SLES 9 from: http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfcontent/downloads.php/edirfreeradius So, i downloaded the rpm (and consoleone plug-in (thanks for the link)) and tried to install it using yast. Of course, when yast checks the dependencies, it says that libk5xx.so, libmysql.so and lib5kcrypto are missing. So, i searched (in yast>software>install and remove software) for the said lib's/files, none found. Huh?? So, i thought maybe i could install the freeradius 0.9.3 version and then "upgrade" to the new version 1.0.5 (i think). So as it stands now, i can not install the 1.0.5 version on SLES9/OES-Linux using edirectory. What am i missing. Thanks for all the help!