gokhaneryol/freeradius-8021x-log-dataset

FreeRADIUS / 802.1X Authentication Failure Taxonomy Dataset

Maintained by: Gökhan Eryol · DeepWakeTech
Navigating networks, securing futures.

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About the Author

Gökhan Eryol has over 18 years of hands-on experience operating, deploying, and supporting federated 802.1X / eduroam infrastructure. During this period he has been involved in national and international eduroam community work, participated in GÉANT conferences and working groups, and provided FreeRADIUS training and consultancy to universities and research institutions across Turkey. He currently operates independently through DeepWakeTech, offering network infrastructure consultancy, advanced troubleshooting, and FreeRADIUS specialist support.

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Dataset Summary

This is a synthetic taxonomy reference dataset for FreeRADIUS / 802.1X authentication events in federated (eduroam-style) environments.

The records in this dataset were not collected from any production network. They were generated in a simulated 802.1X lab environment, guided by 18 years of operational knowledge of authentication failure patterns, misconfiguration scenarios, and federation routing behaviors observed in real-world deployments.

The dataset is designed to:

• Document and standardize the classification of 802.1X / FreeRADIUS authentication failures
• Provide a reusable taxonomy for researchers, operators, and tool developers
• Serve as a reference for building detection rules, alert logic, or classification pipelines

This is a taxonomy reference dataset, not a training dataset.
Each record represents one distinct failure type or authentication pattern. The dataset is intentionally compact — it is meant to illustrate the full classification space, not to provide volume for statistical model training.
For extended datasets, annotated corpora, or collaboration on training data, contact the author via the discussion tab or through DeepWakeTech.

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What is Covered

Authentication Outcomes

result	Meaning
OK	Authentication succeeded
FAIL	Authentication failed at some layer

Log Sources

log_type	Description
fticks	F-TICKS/eduroam/1.0 — the GÉANT standard event logging protocol used in eduroam federations
radius_auth	FreeRADIUS authentication log — per-request decision log with EAP method and failure details

Failure Categories

failure_category	failure_layer	Description
tls_handshake_failure	tls	TLS negotiation failed (e.g. unknown CA, cipher mismatch)
certificate_error	tls	Client or server certificate could not be validated
eap_method_mismatch	eap	Server and client could not agree on an EAP type
eap_inner_auth_failure	eap	Inner credentials (PAP/MSCHAPv2) rejected by home server
eap_cleartext_required	eap	Client requested EAP-MD5 which requires cleartext passwords
policy_reject	policy	Rejected by RADIUS policy (no Auth-Type, explicit deny, etc.)
auto_generated_realm_rejected	policy	Auto-generated realm (SIM-based, supplicant default) dropped by federation policy
misrouted_local_subdomain	policy	Internal subdomain incorrectly forwarded to national proxy
invalid_realm_format	identity	Realm is syntactically malformed and cannot be routed
realm_not_found	radius_proxy	No routing rule exists for the requested realm
timeout_or_no_response	radius_proxy	Home RADIUS server did not respond within timeout
proxy_error	radius_proxy	RADIUS proxy chain error (e.g. session split across servers)

(empty) — result is OK, no failure occurred.

Outer Identity Types

outer_identity_type	Description
anonymous	Explicit anonymous outer identity (anonymous@realm) — privacy-preserving, recommended
institutional_format	Follows user@domain institutional email pattern
numeric_identifier	Numeric-only local part (often auto-generated or SIM-derived)
malformed	Syntactically invalid identity string
unknown	Could not be classified

Realm Signals

realm_signal	Description
syntactically_valid	Realm is well-formed and could correspond to a real institution
auto_generated_pattern	Matches known patterns of auto-generated realms (SIM-based, supplicant defaults)
well_known_public_domain	Public email provider domain (not an institutional identity)
misrouted_local_subdomain	Internal/local subdomain incorrectly sent to the federation
malformed_realm	Syntactically invalid realm (double dots, missing TLD, etc.)
unknown	Could not be classified

Severity and Rarity

Field	Values
severity	low · medium · high · critical
rarity	common · occasional · rare · ultra_rare

Origin

origin	Meaning
client	Root cause is on the end-user device / supplicant
institution	Root cause is at the home or visited institution RADIUS server
federation	Root cause is in the federation proxy layer
unknown	Cannot be determined from log context

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Schema (v3.0.0)

Each JSONL record:

{
  "schema_version": "3.0.0",
  "log_type": "fticks | radius_auth",
  "result": "OK | FAIL",
  "realm_tld": "tr | edu | com | ...",
  "outer_identity_type": "anonymous | institutional_format | numeric_identifier | malformed | unknown",
  "realm_signal": "syntactically_valid | auto_generated_pattern | well_known_public_domain | misrouted_local_subdomain | malformed_realm | unknown",
  "failure_category": "tls_handshake_failure | certificate_error | eap_method_mismatch | ... | (empty if OK)",
  "failure_layer": "tls | eap | policy | identity | radius_proxy | (empty if OK)",
  "severity": "low | medium | high | critical | (empty if OK)",
  "rarity": "common | occasional | rare | ultra_rare",
  "origin": "client | institution | federation | unknown",
  "raw_log": "(simulated log excerpt — no real hostnames or IP addresses)",
  "human_explanation": "Plain-language description of the failure and its likely cause.",
  "operator_hint": "Practical troubleshooting guidance for network operators."
}

Sample Record

{
  "schema_version": "3.0.0",
  "log_type": "radius_auth",
  "result": "FAIL",
  "realm_tld": "tr",
  "outer_identity_type": "anonymous",
  "realm_signal": "syntactically_valid",
  "failure_category": "tls_handshake_failure",
  "failure_layer": "tls",
  "severity": "high",
  "rarity": "occasional",
  "origin": "client",
  "raw_log": "eap_ttls: TLS Alert read:fatal:unknown CA",
  "human_explanation": "The supplicant does not trust the RADIUS server certificate. TLS handshake aborted before inner authentication.",
  "operator_hint": "Deploy the correct CA certificate to the client device via MDM or manual configuration. Verify the server certificate chain is complete."
}

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Coverage of This Release

This release contains 15 records, one per distinct failure/success category:

#	log_type	result	failure_category	failure_layer	severity	rarity
1	radius_auth	FAIL	tls_handshake_failure	tls	high	occasional
2	radius_auth	FAIL	certificate_error	tls	high	rare
3	radius_auth	FAIL	eap_method_mismatch	eap	medium	occasional
4	radius_auth	FAIL	eap_cleartext_required	eap	medium	occasional
5	radius_auth	FAIL	eap_inner_auth_failure	eap	medium	common
6	radius_auth	FAIL	policy_reject	policy	medium	common
7	fticks	FAIL	policy_reject	policy	low	common
8	fticks	FAIL	auto_generated_realm_rejected	policy	low	occasional
9	fticks	FAIL	misrouted_local_subdomain	policy	low	rare
10	fticks	FAIL	realm_not_found	radius_proxy	high	occasional
11	radius_auth	FAIL	timeout_or_no_response	radius_proxy	high	rare
12	radius_auth	FAIL	proxy_error	radius_proxy	critical	ultra_rare
13	fticks	FAIL	invalid_realm_format	identity	low	rare
14	fticks	OK	(none)	—	—	common
15	radius_auth	OK	(none)	—	—	common

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Intended Use

• Reference taxonomy for 802.1X / eduroam failure classification
• Building alert rules, detection logic, or log parsing pipelines
• Academic research on federated AAA systems
• Operator training and documentation
• Schema interoperability for institutions processing their own RADIUS logs

Out-of-Scope Uses

• Direct use as a machine learning training corpus (see contact note below)
• Any attempt to re-identify individuals or institutions
• Commercial use (CC BY-NC 4.0 license applies)

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Extended Dataset / Collaboration

This release documents the classification space. For larger annotated datasets, extended rare-failure corpora, or collaboration on ML training data for 802.1X log classification, please open a Discussion on this page or reach out via DeepWakeTech.

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Reproduce / Extend

The schema and taxonomy are designed to be institution-agnostic. Any organization operating a FreeRADIUS server in a federated 802.1X environment can map their own log output to this schema.

The open-source reference parser is available on PyPI:

pip install eduroam-log-parser

It parses both F-TICKS and FreeRADIUS Auth: log lines, applies deterministic SHA-256 pseudonymisation, and outputs structured JSONL records using the same taxonomy documented here.

→ GitHub: gokhaneryol/eduroam-log-parser
→ PyPI: pypi.org/project/eduroam-log-parser

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License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Commercial use is not permitted without prior written agreement.

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Citation

@dataset{eryol2025freeradius,
  author    = {Eryol, Gökhan},
  title     = {FreeRADIUS / 802.1X Authentication Failure Taxonomy Dataset},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {HuggingFace},
  url       = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/gokhaneryol/freeradius-8021x-log-dataset}
}

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Dataset version: v3.0.0 — Gökhan Eryol · DeepWakeTech