Freeradius not loading up client conf

Question

this is my clients.conf file

client localhost {
ipaddr  = 127.0.0.1
netmask= 32
secret  = 'MYSECRET'
}
client adconnector {
ipaddr  = 172.16.0.0
netmask = 16
secret  = 'MYSECRET'
}

sudo radiusd -X shows up this

.

radiusd: #### Loading Clients ####
 client localhost {
 netmask = 32
 require_message_authenticator = no
  limit {
  max_connections = 16
  lifetime = 0
  idle_timeout = 30
  }
 }
No 'ipaddr' or 'ipv4addr' or 'ipv6addr' field found in client localhost. Please fix your configuration
Support for old-style clients will be removed in a future release
/etc/raddb/clients.conf[1]: secret must be at least 1 character long

I don't get what am I doing wrong? It says no ippadr is found but it is clearly mentioned in the conf and also with secret length.

Answer 1

I have just pasted your exact clients.conf contents as given in the question into a default install of the latest version, and it works correctly:

radiusd: #### Loading Clients ####
 client localhost {
    ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
    netmask = 32
    require_message_authenticator = no
    secret = <<< secret >>>
  limit {
    max_connections = 16
    lifetime = 0
    idle_timeout = 30
  }
 }
 client adconnector {
    ipaddr = 172.16.0.0
    netmask = 16
    require_message_authenticator = no
    secret = <<< secret >>>
  limit {
    max_connections = 16
    lifetime = 0
    idle_timeout = 30
  }
 }

I suspect that you are either editing the wrong file, or there are suspect characters (UTF-8?) in the file that is confusing the parser.

Check the top of the -X debug output, it will say which file is being read, e.g.

including configuration file /etc/raddb/clients.conf

Ensure this is the file you are editing, and there are no symlinks in the wrong places.

As another note, there is no need to use the old configuration options, or to quote strings unless they contain things that actually need quoting. For example, the following is cleaner and more recent style config:

client localhost {
  ipv4addr = 127.0.0.1
  secret = MYSECRET
}
client adconnector {
  ipv4addr = 172.16.0.0/16
  secret = MYSECRET
}