[98814] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: question on algorithm for radius based accouting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Hugh Irvine)
Sat Aug 18 22:12:33 2007
In-Reply-To: <1DDD4A8C38E96A42B93D0E1677DE30082BAD8B@store1.hq.nac.net>
Cc: Ian Mason <nanog@ian.co.uk>, Joe Shen <joe_hznm@yahoo.com.sg>,
nanog@merit.edu
From: Hugh Irvine <hugh@open.com.au>
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 11:57:59 +1000
To: Alex Rubenstein <alex@corp.nac.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On 17 Aug 2007, at 23:35, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
>
>
>> Seriously, can I also add that RADIUS interim accounting is almost
>> essential in this scenario. Real world accounting and session
>> boundaries
>> mis-match badly making it almost mandatory to use interim accounting
>> records to get an approximation of what the figures look like from
>> a billing perspective. I'll also add "watch out for missing records"
>> - I've found RADIUS to be the lossiest network protocol per foot of
>> cabling that I've ever used.
>
> I can't say I've seen this.
>
This sort of thing tends to happen in "wholesale" operations where
the downstream has a congested link.
> Having collected hundreds of millions of radius packets in my years
> (hell, we were running PM-2e's in 1996), and have written several
> accounting collectors, I can't say I agree.
>
> If you follow the specifications properly, unless you have issues with
> the transmitting device (read: BUG), RADIUS accounting has always been
> good to me.
>
You can sometimes improve this situation by transporting the RADIUS
requests over some form of TCP tunnel.
> And, I've not seen the behavior you describe that requires interim.
>
DSL and/or cable systems usually have long-held connections that
often cross billing boundaries - interim accounting is useful in this
scenario.
Dialup connections are not usually long enough to warrant interim
accounting.
regards
Hugh
