Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    FreeRADIUS MAC authentication

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved pfSense Packages
    15 Posts 4 Posters 7.9k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • NogBadTheBadN
      NogBadTheBad @aaronssh
      last edited by

      @aaronssh Try running radsniff -x from a ssh session on your pfSense box

      aaronsshA GertjanG 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • aaronsshA
        aaronssh @NogBadTheBad
        last edited by

        @NogBadTheBad

        Screenshot 2023-07-24 at 11.02.12 AM.png

        aaronsshA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • aaronsshA
          aaronssh @aaronssh
          last edited by

          @aaronssh I am not sure how to read that output in the screenshot above other than it looks like FreeRADIUS is rejecting the auth attempt. I don't understand why.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • GertjanG
            Gertjan @NogBadTheBad
            last edited by

            @NogBadTheBad

            radsniff is nice.

            I'll add another one :
            Shut down FreeRadius in the pfSense GUI.

            On the pfSense command line (SSH - NOT GUI !!) or console : menu 8 :

            radiusd -X
            

            Enjoy.

            Totally useless, but I say it anyway : if you think FreeRadius doesn't show something, then this means it didn't receive something.
            Also, terminology used is rather cryptic. Radius is .... well .... Radius.

            No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
            Edit : and where are the logs ??

            aaronsshA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • aaronsshA
              aaronssh @Gertjan
              last edited by

              @Gertjan said in FreeRADIUS MAC authentication:

              radiusd -X

              I do get a lot more info that way, but I don't know how to interpret what I'm seeing here. Can you determine what this means?

              Screenshot 2023-07-24 at 11.36.15 AM.png

              Screenshot 2023-07-24 at 11.36.29 AM.png

              GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • GertjanG
                Gertjan @aaronssh
                last edited by

                @aaronssh

                Welll ... I never used pfSense Freeradius to do MAC authentication / identification.

                I do see the same :
                4b1fa98f-8e9f-4fd5-b9ff-a50cec877df3-image.png - consider this one harmless.

                I don't know who is 10.173.7.104 neither 10.173.7.1 (probably : pfSense but it has a strange LAN IP)
                00-e0-97-00-35-4b looks like a MAC. From what device ?
                Etc.

                I'm the more basic "user + password" guy.

                The pfSense documentation hasn't a doc / example for you ?

                No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                Edit : and where are the logs ??

                aaronsshA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • aaronsshA
                  aaronssh @Gertjan
                  last edited by

                  @Gertjan
                  10.173.7.104 is the switch
                  10.173.7.1 is pfSense
                  00-e0-97-00-35-4b is the MAC address on my Macbook

                  So all of that looks right to me, and I don't understand why it is rejecting.

                  keyserK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • keyserK
                    keyser Rebel Alliance @aaronssh
                    last edited by

                    @aaronssh Perhaps you forgot to enable MAC bypass in Freeradius since your client is 802.1x challenged?

                    6023767d-a6ef-40fc-9b0c-1a5178001b4b-image.png

                    Love the no fuss of using the official appliances :-)

                    aaronsshA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • aaronsshA
                      aaronssh @keyser
                      last edited by

                      @keyser I noticed that and tried it both ways, but it does not change the result or the error messages.

                      aaronsshA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • aaronsshA
                        aaronssh @aaronssh
                        last edited by aaronssh

                        So I noticed in the logs that both the USER and PASS that are being passed to FreeRADIUS are the MAC address. I have that MAC address entered in the MACs section of FreeRADIUS so to me it seems like it SHOULD at that point authenticate ok. It obviously doesn't.

                        So I thought, what the hell, let's trying setting up a user under USERS in FreeRADIUS and enter the MAC address as both the user and pass. Bam, that works! So seems very counterintuitive but that's good enough for me. Thank you everyone for your help!

                        keyserK NogBadTheBadN 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • keyserK
                          keyser Rebel Alliance @aaronssh
                          last edited by

                          @aaronssh Well, I’m using mac-auth and my clients are entered on the MAC addresses sheet, so it does work in the right configuration.
                          But if you are not going to use 802.1x you can just create the MAc addresses as users.

                          Love the no fuss of using the official appliances :-)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • NogBadTheBadN
                            NogBadTheBad @aaronssh
                            last edited by

                            This post is deleted!
                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • First post
                              Last post
                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.