New functionality in CVS head.

Alan DeKok aland at deployingradius.com
Sun Apr 20 18:44:15 CEST 2008


  After some oblique hints and private tests, I've committed some
interesting new functionality to CVS head.  The latest feature extends
FreeRADIUS past RADIUS, and *way* past VMPS.

  In short, it turns FreeRADIUS into a DHCP server.

  This means that any network needing an *integrated* 802.1x and DHCP
solution can use one piece of software: FreeRADIUS.

  There are some limitations, of course.  The code is experimental, and
is not included in the default build.  (use ./configure --with-dhcp).

  It has few of the features that a normal DHCP server has.  We are
looking for migration scripts from legacy servers and database schemas,
as there are none right now.  The short-term goal is to gain wider
testing, and contributions from the community.

  It has been tested to work with Windows XP, Vista, MAC, Linux, and
*BSD.  This means that the basic DHCP functionality is there for
receiving packets, sending packets, and putting contents into packets.
Any other features normally in a DHCP server don't exist.  e.g.
allocating unused IP's, lease expiry, etc.

  These features should not be too hard to add, as FreeRADIUS already
has multiple "IP allocation" modules for RADIUS packets.  That code can
be re-targeted for DHCP without too much work.

  The current code *should* work when the MAC address of the client is
known, and a fixed IP is assigned to that MAC.  Anything else is at the
"to be implemented" stage.

  Comments, (and patches) are welcome.

  Alan DeKok.





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