Newbie: General Questions About Installation

[A.L.M.Buxey at lboro.ac.uk]

Hi,

> I'm attempting to get my hands around installing FreeRadius-1.0.4 on a
> Debian Linux machine while also trying learn Linux better.  I've been
> reading through all the various documentation, but had a few general
> questions that I was hoping someone would be so kind to reply on.

okay - so you're building from source rather than from the available
package. 

> 1. All the docs show installation starting with the tar file, but no one
> really specifies what directory to begin from.  Should I create a new user
> "raduser" and copy the tar file into /home/raduser or is there somewhere
> else that is the proper place to begin?

well, this is all to do with how you deal with source packages....a lot
of people simply extract the tarball into their home directory, or
a /usr/src/ directory, then do the ./configure, make steps, then
become root to do the 'make install' part. the 3 step install process.
where to actually install? well, this is where many many people
have different ideas. if you've have a Solaris background, then /opt/
is the place to go...eg /opt/freeradius, if you dont care, then slapping it all across the main system is where it could go (configs in /etc,
binaries in /sbin and /bin, other bits in /var/raddb etc. other
folk put it into /usr/local - eg configs in /usr/local/etc/raddb, 
/usr/local/sbin and /usr/local/bin holding the binaries, with
libs lurking in /usr/local/lib.  your choice is controlled by supplying
the correct arguments to the ./configure process.  (see its help output)

> 2. After I installed this all (in /home/raduser), is there a quick test to
> see if the basic functionality works properly?  I read the
> /doc/performance&testing but reached a problem while going through the
> process because I couldn't find or run the /user/local/sbin/radiusd  There
> are zero files in the /user/local/sbin directory.

you have compiled the program, yes? is so, then you'll need to modify
the steps you take when reading such guides to account for where YOUR
binaries are. if the guide says /opt/foobar/foo --takedown, but your
foo binary is in /usr/local/bin/ then you need to change accordingly.
(/usr/local/bin/foo --takedown)

alan