Creating FreeRADIUS 1.1.7 package with SLES 10 SP1

So you've been happily using FreeRADIUS to authenticate your Windows 802.1x clients. Thinking of upgrading to Vista or already did and things are not working? Then you've come to the right place.

As expected something will not work as usual in Vista. PEAP 802.1x authentication will fail in Vista unless you use FreeRADIUS version 1.1.4 and above.

SLES 10 SP1 do not have a FreeRADIUS rpm version 1.1.4 and above so you have to either compile from source or make yourself an rpm file. The latter is preferable with most users especially with SLES.

The steps below will show how to make an rpm package with FreeRADIUS 1.1.7 on your SLES. If they have a new release, just substitute the version number accordingly. This guide is based on one from Novell's Cool Solutions


1. download the latest FreeRADIUS

wget ftp://ftp.freeradius.org/pub/radius/freeradius-1.1.7.tar.gz


2. untar the file

tar -zxf freeradius-1.1.7.tar.gz


3. remove the file postgreslippool.conf from the folder raddb

rm freeradius-1.1.7/raddb/postgreslippool.conf


4. tar back the files

tar -cf freeradius-1.1.7.tar freeradius-1.1.7/*


5. move the new tar file to the SOURCES folder

mv freeradius-1.1.7.tar /usr/src/packages/SOURCES/


6. copy the SUSE spec file into the SPECS folder

cp freeradius-1.1.7/suse/freeradius.spec /usr/src/packages/SPECS/


7. edit the specs file and change the Source to simply .tar

vi /usr/src/packages/SPECS


8. create the package. It will fail because of dependencies issue. Resolve them by installing what is missing and then repeat the process.

rpmbuild -ba /usr/src/packages/SPECS/freeradius.rpm


9. install the rpm. Substitute the build accordingly eg i586. The right rpm for your build will be in the right RPMS folder

rpm -ivh /usr/src/packages/RPMS/build/freeradius-1.1.7-0.sles10.i586.rpm