Cisco Prime Access Registrar 6.0.1 User Guide

Using the radclient Command

This chapter describes how to use radclient, a RADIUS server test tool you run from the command line to test your Cisco Prime Access Registrar RADIUS server. You can use radclient to create packets, send them to a specific server, and examine the response.

Because the radclient command is Tcl-based, you can use it interactively or you can execute it as a Tcl script file.

To run the radclient command, enter:

radclient

After you enter the radclient command, you must log into the RADIUS server and provide an administrator's username, such as admin, and the administrator's password.

This chapter contains the following sections:

•radclient Command Syntax

•Working with Packets

•Attributes

•Using radclient Test Commands

radclient Command Syntax

The radclient command syntax is:

radclient [-C <clustername>] [-N <adminname>] [-P <adminpassword>] [-i] [-n]
[-p <load_path>] [-v] [-z debug_flags] [-I flag]

Valid flags are:

•-C <clustername>

•-N <adminname>

•-P <adminpassword>

•-i—Forces interactive mode

•-n—Skips loading radclient.tcl

•-p <path>—Specifies the load_path

•-s—Uses default cluster, admin user, and password

If you delete the admin user or modify the admin user's password, this option will no longer work.

•-S <file>—Sources specified file

•-v—Prints version and exits

•-I <0 or 1>—Enables to set as IPv4 or IPv6 client. 0 specifies IPv4 client and 1 specifies IPv6 client

-z debug_flags—Specify debug levels. Debug flags must be of the format X=n, where X is the letter corresponding to the type of debug information you want to see, and n is the value. The higher the value, the more output. X can also be a string or a range of letters.

For example, the following command line sets the debug levels for A, B, and C to 3:

radclient -z ABC=3

The following example command line sets the debug levels for everything between A and Z inclusive and l to 5:

radclient -z A-Zl=5

Working with Packets

Using the radclient command, you can create packets (default or specific packets), view packets, send packets, read the value of packets, and delete packets.

This section contains the following topics:

•Creating Packets

•Creating CHAP Access-Request Packets

•Viewing Packets

•Sending Packets

•Creating Empty Packets

•Setting Packet Fields

•Reading Packet Fields

•Deleting Packets

Creating Packets

To create a basic RADIUS Access-Request packet, use the radclient command simple. This function creates a packet and fills in basic attributes. The syntax of the simple command is:

simple <user_name> <user_password>

For example, to create an Access-Request packet for user bob whose password is bigDog, enter:

simple bob bigDog

p001

The radclient command responds with p001, which is the identifier (name) of the newly created packet.

Creating CHAP Access-Request Packets

To create a CHAP Access-Request packet, use the radclient command simple_chap. The syntax of the simple_chap command is:

simple_chap <user_name> <user_password> <use_challenge>

<use_challenge> is a boolean that indicates whether to use the CHAP-Challenge attribute.

For example, to create a CHAP packet and use a <use_challenge>, enter:

simple_chap bob bigDog 1

p002

Viewing Packets

To view a packet or any other object, enter the object identifier at the radclient prompt. For example, to display packet p001, enter:

p001

Packet: code=Access-Request,id=0,length=0, attributes =

User-Name = bob

User-Password = bigDog 
NAS-Identifier = localhost

NAS-Port = 0

Sending Packets

To send a packet, specify the packet identifier and enter the word send.

p001 send

You can optionally specify the host and port to which to send the packet. The default host is localhost, and the default port is 1645.

When you want to send a packet to a different host and different port, you must specify them on the command line. For example, to send a packet to the RADIUS server amazon, at port number 1812, enter:

p001 send amazon 1812

p002 

When Prime Access Registrar receives a response to the packet you sent, it prints the response packet's object identifier before the radclient prompt returns.

The TCL variable tries determines how many times radclient retries to send the packet.

Creating Empty Packets

You can use radclient to create empty packets, them modify the packets to contain the appropriate fields. To create an empty packet, the syntax is:

packet <packet-type>

The optional <packet-type> argument can be the numerical RADIUS packet type identifier, such as 2, or the string representation, such as Access-Accept:

packet 2

p00d 

p00d

Packet: code = Access-Accept, id = 0, length = 0, attributes =  

Setting Packet Fields

You can modify the value of a packet field using the following syntax:

<packet-identifier> set <field> <value>

<packet-identifier> is the packet number, such as p001.

<field > is the packet field you want to modify and can be one of the following:

•attrib—Set attributes in the packet; <value> is the attribute identifier.

•code— The packet type (such as Access-Request); <value> is either a numeric packet-type or the string representation (for example, 1 or Access Request).

•identifier— Set the packet ID; <value> is the numeric ID.

•length—Set the packet length; <value> is the numeric length.

•requestAuthenticator—Set the request authenticator; <value> is a hex string with a colon separating each byte.

<value> is either a numeric packet-type, the string representation, or the hex string with a colon separating each byte.

For example, to set the identifier field to 99, enter:

p001 set identifier 99

99 

p001

Packet: code = Access-Request, id = 99, length = 0, attributes =

	User-Name = bob 
	User-Password = bigDog 
	NAS-Identifier = localhost 
	NAS-Port = 0 

Reading Packet Fields

You can read (get) the value of any of the packet fields by using the syntax:

<packet-identifier> get <attrib>

For example, to get the identifier field, enter:

p001 get identifier

99 

Deleting Packets

When you are writing long-running or iterating scripts, you might want to conserve memory by deleting packets when you are finished with them.

To delete a packet, enter:

<packet-identifier> delete

To delete all resources referred to by the packet p001, enter:

p001 delete

Attributes

Using the radclient command you can create specific RFC-defined attributes of requests and responses.

This section contains the following topics:

•Creating Attributes

•Setting Multivalued Attributes

•Viewing Attributes

•Getting Attribute Information

•Deleting Attributes

•Using the radclient Command

Creating Attributes

To create an attribute object, the syntax is:

<attrib> name <value>

<attrib> is a recognized RADIUS attribute name. <value> is the value of the attribute.

For example, to create the attribute User-Name and set its value to bob, enter:

attrib User-Name bob

a001 

Note a001 is the object identifier for the newly created attribute.

Setting Multivalued Attributes

Prime Access Registrar supports setting multivalued attributes (MVAs) in radclient. Use the set mattrib command to set multivalued attributes, as shown in the following example:

simple bob bob

p001 

attrib cisco-avpair blah

a005 

attrib cisco-avpair boo

a006 

p001 set mattrib a005

p001

Packet: code = Access-Request, id = 0, length = 0, attributes = 

User-Name = bob 

User-Password = bob 

NAS-Identifier = localhost 

NAS-Port = 1 

Cisco-AVPair = blah 

p001 set mattrib a006

p001

Packet: code = Access-Request, id = 0, length = 0, attributes = 

User-Name = bob 

User-Password = bob 

NAS-Identifier = localhost 

NAS-Port = 1 

Cisco-AVPair = blah 

Cisco-AVPair = boo 

Viewing Attributes

To view an attribute, or any other object, type the object identifier at the radclient prompt. For example, to display attribute a001 created in the example above, enter:

a001

User-Name = bob

Getting Attribute Information

You can get the name and value of an attribute in various formats:

•get name—gets the name as a string

•get value—gets the value as a string

•get type—gets the name as an integer

•get valueAsInt—gets the value as an integer

•get valueAsIPAddress—gets the value as an IP address.

The following examples show how to get an attribute's name, type, value, and value as integer:

a001 get name

User-Name

a001 get type

1

a001 get value

bob

a001 get valueAsInt

a001: the value is not an int

Deleting Attributes

When you are writing long running or iterating scripts, you might want to conserve memory by deleting attributes when you are finished with them (be sure not to delete attributes being referred to by other objects, like packets.)

To delete all resources referred to by the attribute a001, enter:

a001 delete

Using the radclient Command

The following three examples show how to use radclient to create, send, and modify packets.

Example 1

This example creates an Access-Request packet for user jane with password jane, and sends it to the default RADIUS server (localhost).

simple jane jane

p001

The command simple jane jane creates the packet; the packet object identifier is p001. When you enter the packet object identifier, radclient displays the contents of the packet.

p001

Packet: code = Access-Request, id = 0, length = 0, attributes =

User-Name = jane 
User-Password = jane 
NAS-Identifier = localhost 
NAS-Port = 0 

When you enter the packet identifier and the command send, radclient sends the packet to the RADIUS server and prints the response packet object identifier.

p001 send

p002 

When you enter the packet object identifier of the response, radclient displays the contents of the response packet.

p002

Packet: code = Access-Accept, id = 1, length = 38, attributes =

Login-IP-Host = 204.253.96.3 
Login-Service = Telnet 
Login-TCP-Port = 541 

Example 2

The following example creates a simple Access-Request packet, then adds other attributes to it.

simple jane jane

p003


The command line above shows creation of the packet p003 using user-ID jane and password jane.

attrib Service-Type Framed

a00c 

The line above shows creating the Service-Type attribute (with the object identifier a00c).

a00c

Service-Type = Framed 

Entering the attribute object identifier a00c displays the attribute object.

p003 set attrib a00c

The line above adds the newly set attribute to the packet. The following line creates another attribute.

attrib NAS-Port 99

a00d 

a00d

NAS-Port = 99 

p003 set attrib a00d

The same steps add the NAS-Port attribute to the packet, and finally, the packet contents are displayed.

p003
Packet: code = Access-Request, id = 0, length = 0, attributes =

	User-Name = jane 
	User-Password = jane 
	NAS-Identifier = localhost 
	Service-Type = Framed 
	NAS-Port = 99 

Example 3

Example 3 performs the same tasks as Example 2 using the command substitution feature of Tcl which allows you to use the results of one command as an argument to another command. Square brackets invoke command substitution. The statement inside the brackets is evaluated, and the result is used in place of the bracketed command.

simple jane jane

p004 

p004 set attrib [ attrib Service-Type Framed ]

p004 set attrib [ attrib NAS-Port 99 ]

p004

Packet: code = Access-Request, id = 0, length = 0, attributes =

	User-Name = jane 
	User-Password = jane 
	NAS-Identifier = localhost 
	Service-Type = Framed 
	NAS-Port = 99 

Using radclient Test Commands

You can use the radclient commands timetest and callsPerSecond to test the RADIUS server.

This section contains the following topics:

•radclient Variables

•Using timetest

•Using callsPerSecond

•Additional radclient Variables

radclient Variables

You control how timetest and callsPerSecond work using radclient variables. To set a radclient variable, use the set command as follows:

set variable value

Table 5-1 lists the radclient variables used in timetest and callsPerSecond and their description.

Using timetest

The timetest command sends a number of requests to the RADIUS server then waits for a response. When a response arrives, timetest immediately sends another request. timetest can keep up to 256 requests outstanding all the time.

The syntax of the timetest command is:

timetest <testtype> [<cycles> [<repetitions> [<starting user number> [<increment user number>]]]]

Table 5-2 lists the applicable test types.

Consider this timetest example with radclient variables set to the following:

host—1.1.1.2

port—1812

secret—cisco

UserNamePattern—user%d

UserPasswordPattern—puser%d

num_users—100,000

num_packets—128

In this example, timetest sends packets directly to the host at IP address 1.1.1.2 on port 1812 with a shared secret cisco. There are 100,000 users in the server's user database with the name pattern user# and password pattern puser#, where # ranges from 0-99,999, inclusive. The number of outstanding requests are limited to 128.

Before starting the timing test, timetest sends an Accounting-On packet to the AAA Server and waits for a response to make sure that any session management being performed on the AAA Server is reset before running the test. After a response is received, the timetest can begin.

Using callsPerSecond

The callsPerSecond command is a smart throttle that sends packets at a rate you set. If you set callsPerSecond to two transactions per second (TPS), callsPerSecond sends a packet every 0.5 seconds.

The syntax of the callsPerSecond command is:

callsPerSecond <callsPerSecond> <testtype> [<cycles> [<repetitions> [<starting user number> [<increment user number>]]]]

Additional radclient Variables

Table 5-3 lists additional radclient variables and their description.