Setting up external Radius server for Hotspot authentication

Summary

In this example we will perform a basic external Radius server configuration and test it with RUT device for Hotspot authentication. We will use freeradius package to set up a local Radius server on Ubuntu operating system. A router with a public IP address will be directly connected to the Radius server and forward authentication requests to a LAN IP address of the server via default Radius ports.

Prerequisites

• RUT1 - Router with a Public IP address to make local server able to accept external authentication requests
• Ubuntu machine - To host a local freeradius server
• RUT2 - To configure Hotspot and test Radius authentication method using our installed server

Preparing Ubuntu machine

Firstly, update the package list and upgrade to the latest packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade