linux newby attempts freeradius (unsuxesfull)

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

Hi,
> Rather that tell me what I an doing wrong (apart from attempting this) can 
> someone point me to where I can find out what I need to know.
> 
> Scenario:
> Debian sarge installed (no probs or errors) on i386 machine.
> Attempting to install freeradius-1.0.4.tar.gz
> 
> will not ./configure without errors.  As I don't know what I am ment to be 
> looking for, I can't find what I am doing wrong.
> 
> Trying to be smart, I went to the debian site and downloaded 
> freeradius_1.0.4-2_i386.deb from 
> http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/freeradius
> I can't find documentation for this, so don't know what to do with it now I 
> have it.
> 
> Given I am NOT familiar with linux at all, and have ventured into this 
> reluctently, can someone point me to some really bullet proof documentation 
> that doesn't assume people already have an extensive knowledge of linux 
> before they start.
> 
> I have been working on this for 3 weeks now, searched gallaxies far away for 
> info, god is now refusing to take my calls, and my wife has threatened to 
> lock me in my room so she doesn't have to put up with me. I have also 
> learned some very colorful words.
> 
> Someone please save me.

for a basic start, I'd recommend that you install the freeradius package supplied to you by
apt-get (or aptitude, dselect etc - choose your poison ;-) ), then you can read many online
sources - or the nice OReilly FreeRADIUS book (linked recommendation removed as i dont want to
make personal profits). you'll want to start looking at the basic config - which will
usually live in /etc/raddb or /usr/local/etc/raddb (depending on how package
is compiled for Debian).  now - what do you want to do with RADIUS - at this point
things become interesting..

alan