FreeRADIUS modules python vs python3

[Alan DeKok]

On Nov 23, 2021, at 5:10 PM, Jonathan Davis <jonathan at prioritycolo.com> wrote:
> 
> I am looking to better understand the python modules under FreeRADIUS. My initial assumption was rlm_python was for 2.7.x and rlm_python3 was for 3.x.

  Yes, that's true.

> However I am confused about the information at https://freeradius.org/modules/
> 
> - rlm_python3 is listed as obsolete with the view documentation link taking you to https://networkradius.com/doc/current/raddb/mods-available/home.html where there is neither python or python3
> - rlm_python is listed as not obsolete, with "Allows the server to call a persistent, embedded Python script."

  Yeah, that's out of date.  We'll have to update it.

  Both Python modules are supported in the 3.x releases.

> Installed FreeRADIUS 3.0.25 from the networkRADIUS packages at https://networkradius.com/packages/
> 
> In the FreeRADIUS dir, I see there is both python and python3 under mods-available, and under mods-config only a python dir

  Hmm.. the git repo doesn't have mods-config/python. I'm not sure where that comes from.

> Was rlm_python3 made obsolete as 2.7 was EOL back in Jan of 2020 and everything is now simply under rlm_python?

  No. The web page needs to be updated.  rlm_python is for Python 2.  rlm_python3 is for Python 3.  Both modules are supported.

> Looking at the latest examples on https://github.com/FreeRADIUS/freeradius-server/blob/master/src/modules/rlm_python I see both example.py and  prepaid.py look to be executed as python3, both have #! /usr/bin/env python3 in their headers:
> 
> Create the symlink in mods-enabled/python to mods-available/python and try with the example provided, which works, then I switch it over to my own script, start radiusd -Xx and get the following error:
> 
> Tue Nov 23 16:02:41 2021 : Info: Python version: 2.7.18 (default, Oct 11 2021, 11:39:27)  [GCC 8.5.0 20210514 (Red Hat 8.5.0-3)]a
> Tue Nov 23 16:02:41 2021 : Error: python_function_load - Module 'dr_yubikey' not found
> Tue Nov 23 16:02:41 2021 : Error: <type 'exceptions.ImportError'> (No module named requests)
> Tue Nov 23 16:02:41 2021 : Error: [0] /etc/raddb/mods-config/python/dr_yubikey.py:13 at <module>()
> Tue Nov 23 16:02:41 2021 : Error: python_function_load - Failed to import python function 'dr_yubikey.authorize'
> Tue Nov 23 16:02:41 2021 : Error: /etc/raddb/mods-enabled/python[9]: Instantiation failed for module "python"
> 
> I'm aware the above is failing because requests can't be imported, but request is installed under python3, and that first info line is not python3, but Python 2.7.18 ?

  If you enable the mods-available/python module, it will be using Python 2.

> python2 pip install requests does get me to Tue Nov 23 16:19:55 2021 : Info: Ready to process requests when starting debug.
> 
> 
> Trying with python3 symlinked in mods-enabled, and creating mods-config/python3 and dropping my .py in there:
> 
> Tue Nov 23 17:02:11 2021 : Error: /etc/raddb/mods-enabled/python3[9]: Failed to link to module 'rlm_python3': /usr/lib64/freeradius/rlm_python3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> 
> Which is true, there is no rlm_python3.so that exists under /usr/lib64/freeradius/

  That isn't in the v3 packages.  We'll update it.

> Are my assumptions wildly incorrect or am I missing something super obvious?

  You're pretty much correct.

* rlm_python is for Python2
* rlm_python3 is for Python3
* both are supported in our v3 releases.
* the current RPM / DEB files we distribute don't have rlm_python3 installed.  We'll see if we can fix that.

  Alan DeKok.