Using FreeRADIUS with Cisco Devices

Even though I am the only administrator for the devices in my lab and home network, I thought it would be nice to have some form of centralized authentication, authorization and accounting for these devices. However, I quickly realized that using a dedicated appliance such as Cisco ACS or ISE would mean adding another always-on VM to my lab environment. I wasn’t quite ready to start wasting my lab resources on a basic function like AAA. So instead of using a dedicated appliance, I decide to implement FreeRADIUS on the Ubuntu Linux server that I use for DNS, DHCP, syslog, and other network services in my lab.

Although, TACACS+ is usually the protocol of choice for Cisco AAA, my requirements are simple enough that RADIUS will work just as well. And since FreeRADIUS is included in the standard Ubuntu repositories this should be very easy to install. Continue reading