RADIUSdesk Accel-ppp Agent

Overview

• The RADIUSdesk Accel-ppp Agent is a lightweight add-on to Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi devices that serves as a broker between Accel-ppp and RADIUSdesk.
• It uses a couple of Lua based libraries and scripts to fulfill its mandate.

Installation

Please double check

• Make sure the iptables package is installed. (It was not installed on my Raspberry Pi OS image)

sudo apt-get install iptables

• Make sure packet forwarding for IPv4 is enabled. Edit the /etc/sysctl.conf.
• Find and uncomment net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 line.

The Rest

• We assume you already have a device that has Accel-ppp installed as per instructions elsewhere on this Wiki.
• Install the following packages.

sudo apt-get install -y curl lua-socket lua-cjson luarocks
sudo luarocks install inifile

• Check out the latest RADIUSdesk code

cd /var/www
sudo git clone https://github.com/RADIUSdesk/rdcore.git
#Link the accel-ppp agent's files to /etc directory
ln -s /var/www/rdcore/cake4/rd_cake/setup/accel-ppp/MESHdesk /etc/MESHdesk

Configuration

Startup and config reference files

• Copy the following reference files:

#config file for the agent
sudo cp /etc/MESHdesk/files/accel-ppp-rd.conf /etc/
#startup file. We make a backup first of the original one (of there were one)
cp /etc/rc.local /etc/rd.local.bak
sudo cp /etc/MESHdesk/files/rc.local /etc/

Config File

• Configuration is done by tweaking the /etc/accel-ppp-rd.conf file.
• Refer to the sample below

[internet]
disabled=0
dns=cloud.radiusdesk.com
protocol=https
http_port=80
https_port=443
ip=164.160.89.129
 
[pppoe]
interface=eth0

• In our setup we have a RADIUSdesk server which has a FQDN of cloud.radiusdesk.com
• We also specify the fallback ip as 164.160.89.129 in the event when DNS does not resolve.
• Protocol can be either https or http. We choose https which is more secure.
• We also specify the interface we want the PPPoE service to run on.
• In our case we have a Raspberry Pi 4 with an Enternet port (eth0) where we will run the PPPoE service on.
• The agent will then fetch the MAC Address of this interface and forward the request for config to RADIUSdesk using this MAC Address as the unique identifier.
• Make changes to this file so that it works with your environment and device.

Startup File

• Disable automatic startup of Accel-ppp.

sudo systemctl disable accel-ppp

• The startup file is /etc/rc.local.
• You also have to tweak it to work on the device running the RADIUSdesk Accel-ppp Agent.
• Refer to the sample below

#!/bin/bash
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE
 
cd /etc/MESHdesk
 
sleep 10
/etc/MESHdesk/u.lua &
sleep 10
/etc/MESHdesk/heartbeat.lua &
 
exit 0

• The important line is the one with the iptables rule for NAT.
• With our setup the WAN connection / uplink is the WiFi interface, wlan0.
• Make sure that your setup matches your device's configuration.

• On the Raspberry Pi the rc.local script was called automatically during startup.
• On Ubuntu you'll probably have to follow these instructions to ensure that it starts up during boot time
• http://radiusdesk.com/wiki/technical/ppp-pppoe-basic#add_masquerade_support_on_wan_enp0s3
• Everything should now be in place and you can reboot the device and see if it is listed under Accel-ppp Servers → New Arrivals

RADIUS Client

• If your Accel-ppp server is using RADIUSdesk for its RADIUS component you have one last step to do.
• You can do its RADIUS on-boarding by looking for it under RADIUS → RADIUS Clients → New Arrivals.
• After you completed the on-boarding be sure to specify the Client Type as Accel-On-RADIUSdesk.
• This will allow the code to follow the correct procedure when an active session for a user needs to be terminated.