FreeRADIUS does the job well and the price is right!
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use FreeRADIUS to authenticate our users to wifi. It eliminates the issue of a shared password and the security flaws that follow that idea as employees come and go. Also by utilizing this system we can allocate the appropriate network resources based on the account that logs in. Since radius servers are widely accepted we are able to use this user database with a variety of services.
Pros
- FreeRADIUS is easy to configure
- It is fast a lightweight footprint on the server
- FreeRADIUS works universally with other systems that support radius authentication
Cons
- FreeRADIUS requires a 3rd party interface to make it easier to access (we use Daloradius) - it would nice if it was built in.
- Installation and configuration are pretty easy and straightforward but does require connecting to a database which can be cumbersome.
Likelihood to Recommend
FreeRADIUS is completely scalable and supports both large and small user databases. Because it doesn't take up a lot of server resources, FreeRADIUS is well-suited for organizations with small budgets (it's in the name!) and limited networking hardware. While there is a port of it for Windows, FreeRADIUS is native to Linux so that would be a limitation for many companies who don't use it.
