FreeRADIUS - Dictionary Files

• FreeRADIUS comes standard with a large amount of dictionary files.
• These files are consulted by FreeRADIUS to convert an Attribute name to a digital value.
• Attribute names are typically part of a profile associated with a user e.g. specifying a VLAN or IP pool or a speed limit that needs to be imposed.
• Dictionary files are used in a similar way when compared to a DNS server or hosts file where a system will convert a hostname to an IP Address in order to communicate on the network.
• Standard FreeRADIUS dictionary files are located under the /usr/share/freeradius/ folder.
• They have a naming convention of dictionary[dot][vendor] e.g. dictionary.mikrotik.
• The recommendation is to keep this folder standard and not to add additional or modify dictionaries here.

• RADIUSdesk allows you to conveniently select items out of the dictionary files to formulate profiles or to manage attributes belonging to users (Permanent Users, Vouchers, Devices)
• In order for the Select control to work as intended ensure that the Nginx webserver can read the /etc/freeradius/3.0/dictionary file.

sudo chown freerad:www-data /etc/freeradius
sudo chown freerad:www-data /etc/freeradius/3.0
sudo chown freerad:www-data /etc/freeradius/3.0/dictionary

• We can also add additional dictionary files.
• Create a folder where you will store the new / additional dictionaries:

sudo mkdir /etc/freeradius/3.0/dictionary_overrides

• Copy the additional dictionary in this folder.
• Here we have a dictionary file for Accel-ppp called dictionary.accel

VENDOR			Accel-PPP				55999
 
BEGIN-VENDOR	Accel-PPP
 
ATTRIBUTE	Accel-VRF-Name			1		string
 
END-VENDOR		Accel-PPP

• Edit the /etc/freeradius/3.0/dictionary file to include this dictionary specifically.

#This is not required for FreeRADIUS3 anymore but it is required for RADIUSdesk
$INCLUDE /usr/share/freeradius/dictionary
 
$INCLUDE  /etc/freeradius/3.0/dictionary_overrides/dictionary.accel

• Restart FreeRADIUS for this changes to take effect.

sudo service freeradius restart