USERS(5)USERS(5)NAMEusers - Merit AAA server user security and configuration
file
SYNOPSIS
../raddb/users
DESCRIPTION
The users file resides in the Merit AAA server configura-
tion directory (named .../raddb somewhere). It contains a
list of users on which the Merit AAA server will perform
authentication. Comments are indicated by leading pound
sign ('#') characters. All such comment lines are ignored
(as are blank lines).
The file contains one or more lines of information for
each such user. The first line of each entry consists of
one or more fields:
<users-name> <check-item> [, <check-item>] ...
For example:
george Password = "foobar"
There are four special user names, DEFAULT, dumbuser,
pppuser and slipuser, which are used 1) as the default
entry for user names which do not match any previous
entries, 2) to hold non-framed reply-items, 3) to hold PPP
reply-items, and 4) to hold SLIP reply-items, respec-
tively. The latter three entries allow a user to authen-
ticate with the same account name for any of the framed or
non-framed protocols. The DEFAULT entry specifies how
user names, not explicitly matched above it in this file,
are to be authenticated.
Additional lines associated with the first line described
above, but beginning with leading whitespace, follow the
first line and indicate the (Attribute/Value Pairs) reply
items to be passed back to the requesting RADIUS client or
server. These may include things like PPP configuration
values, the name of the host to which the user wishes to
connect or an optional packet filter name.
Attribute/Value Pair names must be defined in the dictio-
nary file.
These additional lines consist of one or more fields:
<whitespace> <reply-item>, [<reply-item>,] ...
For example:
<TAB> Framed-Protocol = PPP,
9 December 1997 1
USERS(5)USERS(5)
Note that the first line (of check-items) for each entry
does NOT end with a comma (',') character while the reply-
item lines of each entry begin with a TAB or space charac-
ter and end with a comma character, except for the final
reply-item of each entry, which omits the trailing comma.
There are two types of check-items: regular check-items
and deny-items. A deny-item is a regular attribute (iden-
tical in all respects to a check-item except that instead
of using an equals ("=") character, you may specify not-
equals by using the two character ("!=") sequence). The
deny-items are used to reverse the sense of the authenti-
cation-time check from "must match" this attribute to
"must not match" this attribute. In other words, a deny-
item causes an Access-Request to be rejected if it matches
an attribute in the request. You may also configure a
denial message as a deny-item (all on the first line) as
follows:
Deny-Message = "Access to this port is not allowed"
This string would be returned to the user in the Access-
Reject as a Reply-Message if any deny-item for this user
caused a rejection. You may also use the special string
("*") consisting of just the asterisk character as fol-
lows:
Deny-Message = "*"
This provides a canned message indicating which deny-item
triggered the rejection:
"Access denied, <attribute> = <value>"
Vendor specific attributes may be specified as <ven-
dor>:<attribute> in place of normal check-item and reply-
item attributes, for example:
Ascend:Ascend-Metric
The users file is optionally read into internal tables by
radiusd at startup and whenever a HUP signal is received
by radiusd. The Merit AAA server detects any out-of-date
configuration files upon receipt of a Status-Server (or
Management-Poll) request and re-reads all the configura-
tion files. The users file may be converted into a dbm(3)
database by using the builddbm(8) utility. This file is
maintained by the system administrator using a text edi-
tor.
FILES
../raddb/dictionary the file describing the possible
Attribute/Value Pairs.
../raddb/users this file.
9 December 1997 2
USERS(5)USERS(5)SEE ALSOdbm(3), signal(3), dictionary(5), builddbm(8), radiusd(8),
radcheck(8), radpwtst(8)
9 December 1997 3