Chapter 2. New Packages

A new package, freeradius2, is now available.

FreeRADIUS is an Internet authentication daemon, which implements the RADIUS protocol, as defined in RFC 2865 (and others). It allows Network Access Servers (NAS boxes) to perform authentication for dial-up users. There are also RADIUS clients available for Web servers, firewalls, Unix logins, and more. Using RADIUS allows authentication and authorization for a network to be centralized, and minimizes the amount of re-configuration which has to be done when adding or deleting new users.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 originally shipped with FreeRADIUS 1.1.3. Since that time the FreeRADIUS project has had a major new release: FreeRADIUS 2. Because of the numerous enhancements available in FreeRADIUS 2 many users would prefer to use the more contemporary version of FreeRADIUS. This new package, provides this newer version. (BZ#473704)

Note: versions 1.x and 2.x of FreeRADIUS are not configuration compatible. Red Hat will continue to support and make available freeradius-1.1.3. Customers who are utilizing the original freeradius-1.1.3 will see no difference. For customers who wish to utilize the newer 2.x version of FreeRADIUS in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 the new freeradius2 package provides that capability.

Note: freeradius and freeradius2 cannot be installed simultaneously. Because they share common files, rpm, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux package manager, will prevent an installation of FreeRADIUS 2.x if FreeRADIUS 1.x is already installed. To install freeradius2 on a system with freeradius currently installed, freeradius must first be uninstalled. See the solution section below for details.

Users wanting to take advantage of the enhancements available in FreeRADIUS 2.x should install and configure this new package.