3.4.3 Hints

User-name hints are special rules that modify the incoming request depending on the user name and its credentials. Hints are stored as a list of matching rules (see section 3.3 Matching Rule). Upon receiving a request, radiusd scans the hint entries sequentially, comparing each rule's label with the value of the User-Name attribute from the request. If they coincide, then radiusd appends the contents of the rule's RHS to the request's pair list.

The two user names must match exactly in order for a hint to take effect, unless the hint's checklist contains either the Prefix or the Suffix attribute. The special name `DEFAULT' or `DEFAULT%d' (where %d denotes any decimal number), used as a hint's label, matches any user name.

Two special attributes, Prefix and Suffix, may be used in LHS to restrict the match to a specified part of a user name. Both are string attributes. The Prefix instructs radiusd to accept the hint only if the user name begins with the given prefix. Similarly, Suffix instructs radiusd to accept the hint only if the user name ends with the given suffix. A hint may contain both Prefix and Suffix attributes.

In addition to these two attributes, a hint's LHS may contain User-ID and Group attributes.

The following attributes, when used in a hint's RHS have special meaning. They are not appended to the request pair list. Instead, they are removed after completing their function:

Fall-Through

If this attribute is present and is set to Yes, radiusd continues scanning the hints after processing the current entry. This allows radiusd to apply several hints to a single packet.

Rewrite-Function

If this attribute is present, the specified rewrite function is invoked.

Replace-User-Name

The value of this attribute is expanded (see section 5.14 Macro Substitution) and replaces the value of the User-Name attribute from the request.

Hint rules are defined in the `raddb/hints' file (see section 5.6 Request Processing Hints -- `raddb/hints').