VMPS - Initial project ideas

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

Hi,

> I am just about to start a project to remove the VMPS system from an aging
> catalyst switch and i would like to investigate the possibilty of using
> FreeRadius for this.

yep - no problem.  grab the latest version of FreeRADIUS and
use the VMPC functionality.

fwiw, we migrated to the FreeRADIUS VMPS just over a yera ago - from
an openvmps system. reasons? we had FreeRADIUS experience, we needed
a full threaded VMPS method that could handle incoming requests
from 48-port switches etc. we also needed something that could read
our MAC/user details from a database.

solution, freeradius 2.x with VMPS module - with the module calling
PERL - which did our DB lookups (very big custom queries which we
simply cut and pasted from our openvpmc perl wrapper. a couple of days
of migration , testing and debugging. and then a very busy night
optimising the DB because FR really could whack it solid! (a few
multi table indexes and queries went from 0.2s to 0.001s)

you may not need or want tha complexity, so just get your data
into a plain file which the VMPS module can easily read - see
the supplied examples - you should be able to show the current
VMPS MAC stuff with the right 'show' command and cut'n'paste the results
out into a file (I've never used an actual cisco device to do VMPS -
I've heard thats the expected way but hey! :-) )

> really looking for a bit of advice from those with experience of the
> FreeRADIUS application and who know of the potential pit-falls and
> complications that we may face!

1) compiling from source may need more linux skills
2) handling files and stuff needs skills too
3) debugging the application could be tricky.

you might get enough hand-holding via this list

alan