Subversion Repositories configs

  This directory contains scripts to create the server certificates.

To make a set of default (i.e. test) certificates, simply type:

$ ./bootstrap

  The "openssl" command will be run against the sample configuration

files included here, and will make a self-signed certificate authority

(i.e. root CA), and a server certificate.  This "root CA" should be

installed on any client machine needing to do EAP-TLS, PEAP, or

EAP-TTLS.

  The Microsoft "XP Extensions" will be automatically included in the

server certificate.  Without those extensions Windows clients will

refuse to authenticate to FreeRADIUS.

  In general, you should use self-signed certificates for 802.1x (EAP)

authentication.  When you list root CAs from other organizations in

the "CA_file", you permit them to masquerade as you, to authenticate

your users, and to issue client certificates for EAP-TLS.

  If FreeRADIUS was configured to use OpenSSL, then simply starting

the server in root in debugging mode should also create test

certificates, i.e.:

$ radiusd -X

  That will cause the EAP-TLS module to run the "bootstrap" script in

this directory.  The script will be executed only once, the first time

the server has been installed on a particular machine.  This bootstrap

script SHOULD be run on installation of any pre-built binary package

for your OS.  In any case, the script will ensure that it is not run

twice, and that it does not over-write any existing certificates.

  If you already have CA and server certificates, rename (or delete)

this directory, and create a new "certs" directory containing your

certificates.  Note that the "make install" command will NOT

over-write your existing "raddb/certs" directory, which means that the

"bootstrap" command will not be run.

		NEW INSTALLATIONS OF FREERADIUS

  We suggest that new installations use the test certificates for

initial tests, and then create real certificates to use for normal

user authentication.  See the instructions below for how to create the

various certificates.  The old test certificates can be deleted by

running the following command:

$ rm -f *.pem *.der *.csr *.crt *.key *.p12 serial* index.txt*

  Then, follow the instructions below for creating real certificates.

  Once the final certificates have been created, you can delete the

"bootstrap" command from this directory, and delete the

"make_cert_command" configuration from the "tls" sub-section of

eap.conf.

  If you do not want to enable EAP-TLS, PEAP, or EAP-TTLS, then delete

the relevant sub-sections from the "eap.conf" file.

		MAKING A ROOT CERTIFICATE

$ vi ca.cnf

  Edit the "input_password" and "output_password" fields to be the

  password for the CA certificate.

  Edit the [certificate_authority] section to have the correct values

  for your country, state, etc.

$ make ca.pem

  This step creates the CA certificate.

$ make ca.der

  This step creates the DER format of the self-signed certificate,

  which is can be imported into Windows.

		MAKING A SERVER CERTIFICATE

$ vi server.cnf

  Edit the "input_password" and "output_password" fields to be the

  password for the server certificate.

  Edit the [server] section to have the correct values for your

  country, state, etc.  Be sure that the commonName field here is

  different from the commonName for the CA certificate.

$ make server.pem

  This step creates the server certificate.

  If you have an existing certificate authority, and wish to create a

  certificate signing request for the server certificate, edit

  server.cnf as above, and type the following command.

$ make server.csr

  You will have to ensure that the certificate contains the XP

  extensions needed by Microsoft clients.

		MAKING A CLIENT CERTIFICATE

  Client certificates are used by EAP-TLS, and optionally by EAP-TTLS

and PEAP.  The following steps outline how to create a client

certificate that is signed by the server certificate created above.

You will have to have the password for the server certificate in the

"input_password" and "output_password" fields of the server.cnf file.

$ vi client.cnf

  Edit the "input_password" and "output_password" fields to be the

  password for the client certificate.  You will have to give these

  passwords to the end user who will be using the certificates.

  Edit the [client] section to have the correct values for your

  country, state, etc.  Be sure that the commonName field here is

  the User-Name that will be used for logins!

$ make client.pem

  The users certificate will be in "emailAddress.pem",

  i.e. "user@example.com.pem".

  To create another client certificate, just repeat the steps for

  making a client certificate, being sure to enter a different login

  name for "commonName", and a different password.

		PERFORMANCE

  EAP performance for EAP-TLS, TTLS, and PEAP is dominated by SSL

  calculations.  That is, a normal system can handle PAP

  authentication at a rate of 10k packets/s.  However, SSL involves

  RSA calculations, which are very expensive.  To benchmark your system,

  do:

$ openssl speed rsa

  or

$ openssl speed rsa2048

  to test 2048 bit keys.

  A 1GHz system will likely do 30 calculations/s.  A 2Ghz system may

  do 50 calculations/s, or more.  That number is also the number of

  authentications/s that can be done for EAP-TLS (or TTLS, or PEAP).

		COMPATIBILITY

The certificates created using this method are known to be compatible

with ALL operating systems.  Some common issues are:

  - Windows requires certain OID's in the certificates.  If it doesn't

    see them, it will stop doing EAP.  The most visibile effect is

    that the client starts EAP, gets a few Access-Challenge packets,

    and then a little while later re-starts EAP.  If this happens, see

    the FAQ, and the comments in raddb/eap.conf for how to fix it.

  - Windows requires the root certificates to be on the client PC.

    If it doesn't have them, you will see the same issue as above.

  - Windows XP post SP2 has a bug where it has problems with

    certificate chains.  i.e. if the server certificate is an

    intermediate one, and not a root one, then authentication will

    silently fail, as above.

  - Some versions of Windows CE cannot handle 4K RSA certificates.

    They will (again) silently fail, as above.

  - In none of these cases will Windows give the end user any

    reasonable error message describing what went wrong.  This leads

    people to blame the RADIUS server.  That blame is misplaced.

  - Certificate chains of more than 64K bytes are known to not work.

    This is a problem in FreeRADIUS.  However, most clients cannot

    handle 64K certificate chains.  Most Access Points will shut down

    the EAP session after about 50 round trips, while 64K certificate

    chains will take about 60 round trips.  So don't use large

    certificate chains.  They will only work after everyone upgrade

    everything in the network.

  - All other operating systems are known to work with EAP and

    FreeRADIUS.  This includes Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, Solaris,

    Symbian, along with all known embedded systems, phones, WiFi

    devices, etc.

  - Someone needs to ask Microsoft to please stop making life hard for

    their customers.

		SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

The default certificate configuration files uses MD5 for message

digests, to maintain compatibility with network equipment that

supports only this algorithm.

MD5 has known weaknesses and is discouraged in favor of SHA1 (see

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/836068 for details). If your network

equipment supports the SHA1 signature algorithm, we recommend that you

change the "ca.cnf", "server.cnf", and "client.cnf" files to specify

the use of SHA1 for the certificates. To do this, change the

'default_md' entry in those files from 'md5' to 'sha1'.