dictionary(5) File Formats Manual dictionary(5)

dictionary - RADIUS dictionary file

The master RADIUS dictionary file resides in /etc/raddb/dictionary. It references other dictionary files located in /usr/share/freeradius/. Each dictionary file contains a list of RADIUS attributes and values, which the server uses to map between descriptive names and on-the-wire data. The names have no meaning outside of the RADIUS server itself, and are never exchanged between server and clients.

That is, editing the dictionaries will have NO EFFECT on anything other than the server that is reading those files. Adding new attributes to the dictionaries will have NO EFFECT on RADIUS clients, and will not make RADIUS clients magically understand those attributes. The dictionaries are solely for local administrator convenience, and are specific to each version of FreeRADIUS.

The dictionaries in /usr/share SHOULD NOT be edited unless you know exactly what you are doing. Changing them will most likely break your RADIUS deployment.

If you need to add new attributes, please edit the /etc/raddb/dictionary file. It's sole purpose is to contain site-local definitions that are added by the local administrator.

Every line starting with a hash sign ('#') is treated as comment and ignored.

Each line of the file can contain one of the following strings:

Define a RADIUS attribute name to number mapping.

The name field is a printable field, taken from various specifications or vendor definitions. It is most commonly used as a series of words, separated by hyphens. e.g. "User-Name". Vendor-specific attributes (VSAs) are prefixed by the vendor name, e.g. "Cisco-AVPair". The names should be globally unique, as they are used as a key to look up the properties of the attribute.

The oid field is taken from the relevant specification for that name. In most cases, it is a decimal number, such as "256". For certain attributes, a "dotted number" notation is used, e.g. "1.2". The "dotted number" notation is used only for certain attributes.

The type field can be one of the standard types:


string UTF-8 printable text (the RFCs call this "text")
octets opaque binary data (the RFCs call this "string")
ipaddr IPv4 address
date Seconds since January 1, 1970 (32-bits)
integer 32-bit unsigned integer
ipv6addr IPv6 Address
ipv6prefix IPV6 prefix, with mask
ifid Interface Id (hex:hex:hex:hex)
integer64 64-bit unsigned integer

The type field can be one of the following non-standard types:


ether Ethernet MAC address
abinary Ascend binary filter format
byte 8-bit unsigned integer
short 16-bit unsigned integer
signed 31-bit signed integer (packed into 32-bit field)
tlv Type-Length-Value (allows nested attributes)
ipv4prefix IPv4 Prefix as given in RFC 6572.

The last (optional) field of an attribute definition are additional flags for that attribute, in a comma-separated list. Previous versions of the server allowed these flags to include a vendor name. This behavior may still work, but it is deprecated, and is not recommended.

The options are:


encrypt=# set encryption type 1, 2, or 3.
has_tag The attribute can have an RFC 2868 style tag

The "encrypt" flag marks the attribute as being encrypted with one of three possible methods. "1" means that the attribute is encrypted with the method as defined in RFC2865 for the User-Password attribute. "2" means that the password is encrypted with the method as defined in RFC2868 for the Tunnel-Password attribute. "3" means that the attribute is encrypted as per Ascend's definitions for the Ascend-Send-Secret attribute.

The "has_tag" flag marks the attribute as being permitted to have a tag, as defined in RFC2868. The purpose of the tag is to allow grouping of attributes for tunneled users. See RFC2868 for more details.

When the server receives an encoded attribute in a RADIUS packet, it looks up that attribute by number in the dictionary, and uses the definition found there for printing diagnostic and log messages. When the server sees an attribute name in a configuration file, it looks up that attribute by name in the dictionary, and uses the definition found there.

Define an attribute value name to number mapping, for an attribute of type integer. The attribute-name field MUST be previously defined by an ATTRIBUTE entry. The value-name field can be any non-space text, but is usually taken from RFC2865, or other documents.. The number field is also taken from the relevant documents, for that name.

When the server receives an encoded value in a RADIUS packet, it looks up the value of that attribute by number in the dictionary, and uses the name found there for printing diagnostic and log messages.

Define a Vendor Specific Attribute encapsulation for vendor-name to number. For a list of vendor names and numbers, see http://www.iana.org/enterprise-numbers.txt.

The "format=t,l" statement tells the server how many octets to use to encode/decode the vendor "type" and "length" fields in the attributes. The default is "format=1,1", which does not have to be specified. For USR VSA's, the format is "format=4,0", for Lucent VSA's it's "format=2,1", and for Starent VSA's it's "format=2,2".

The supported values for the number of type octets (i.e. the first digit) are 1, 2, and 4. The support values for the number of length octets (i.e. the second digit) are 0, 1, and 2. Any combination of those values will work.

Define the start of a block of Vendor-Specific attributes. All of the following ATTRIBUTE definitions are interpreted as being for the named vendor, until the block is closed by an "END-VENDOR" statement.

This practice is preferred to placing the vendor name at the end of an ATTRIBUTE definition.

For VSAs in the RFC 6929 "Extended vendor-specific" space, a format can be specified following the "vendor-name". The format should be "format=Extended-Vendor-Specific-1", through "format=Extended-Vendor-Specific-6". The matching "END-VENDOR" should just have the "vendor-name", without the format string.

End a previously defined BEGIN-VENDOR block. The "vendor-name" must match.
$INCLUDE filename
Include dictionary entries from the file filename. The filename is taken as relative to the location of the file which is asking for the inclusion.
This feature is supported for backwards compatibility with older dictionaries. It should not be used. The new "oid" form for defining the attribute number should be used instead.
This feature is supported for backwards compatibility with older dictionaries. It should not be used. The new "oid" form for defining the attribute number should be used instead.

/etc/raddb/dictionary, /usr/share/freeradius/dictionary.*

radiusd(8), RFC2865, RFC2866, RFC2868 RFC6929

12 Jun 2015