Pls help: missing Stop accounting packets

2009-01-23 Thread ST Wong (ITSC)
Hi all,


I'm using FreeRadius 2.1.3 on 2 Linux machines with accounting data stored in 
both radacct file and MySQL database.  Recently we found that some 'aged' 
records have AcctStopTime = NULL.Seems Stop accounting packet for these 
records are not received.  The problem is consistent in both cases - such Stop 
packets didn't recorded in radacct file and MySQL database. I've no idea 
whether the stop packet sent to radius server was not recorded, or if  stop 
packet was not sent from AP.   As we're using Aruba AP, I wonder if Stop packet 
will be missed under particular situation, e.g. session timeout, disconnect 
without proper logout, etc., or if I configured our radius servers incorrectly 
so that some stop packets are not received or recorded.   Meanwhile, I'd also 
like to know if there is any solution to clean up such orphan records if they 
can't be avoided.

Would anyone please help?  Sorry for the newbie question.  Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,
/ST Wong


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Re: Pls help: missing Stop accounting packets

2009-01-23 Thread Leigh Martell
Well, there are many reasons why this could happen most of them caused
between your NAS and Radius server; since you have already checked the
detail file you should check your AP logs for reboots and radius
timeouts(although it is UDP based there is an accounting ack sent). I am not
familiar with the aruba gear, but if they do not support accounting
persistence then once they are rebooted they loose records of all the active
sessions; this is most likely the cause.

Here is a list of question you should ask your self:
- Does this happen accross the board?
- Are there any accounting errors in radius log?
- Is there a trend between AP, radius logs and missing stop packets?
- Are these duplicate starts that were not closed?

I any setup you will most likely always encounter missing start/update/stop
packets, one way to ensure you do not loose the entire session is to enable
Interim accounting updates; then you will at least have partial session
statistic. In my setup I have a nightly script that closes all the stale
sessions and completes then based on the last interim update and sets the
terminate cause to 'Admin-Reset' as our AP will never use that terminate
cause; this allows me to track what I have closed and still have some what
complete accounting data. That being said every setup is different and you
will have to determine the best way for you to handle it.

Hope this helps a bit.

--
Leigh

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 10:17 AM, ST Wong (ITSC) s...@itsc.cuhk.edu.hkwrote:

 Hi all,


 I'm using FreeRadius 2.1.3 on 2 Linux machines with accounting data stored
 in both radacct file and MySQL database.  Recently we found that some 'aged'
 records have AcctStopTime = NULL.Seems Stop accounting packet for these
 records are not received.  The problem is consistent in both cases - such
 Stop packets didn't recorded in radacct file and MySQL database. I've no
 idea whether the stop packet sent to radius server was not recorded, or if
  stop packet was not sent from AP.   As we're using Aruba AP, I wonder if
 Stop packet will be missed under particular situation, e.g. session timeout,
 disconnect without proper logout, etc., or if I configured our radius
 servers incorrectly so that some stop packets are not received or recorded.
   Meanwhile, I'd also like to know if there is any solution to clean up such
 orphan records if they can't be avoided.

 Would anyone please help?  Sorry for the newbie question.  Thanks a lot.

 Best Regards,
 /ST Wong


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 List info/subscribe/unsubscribe? See
 http://www.freeradius.org/list/users.html

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Re: Pls help: missing Stop accounting packets

2009-01-23 Thread tnt
I'm using FreeRadius 2.1.3 on 2 Linux machines with accounting data stored in 
both radacct file and MySQL database.  Recently we found that some 'aged' 
records have AcctStopTime = NULL.Seems Stop accounting packet for these 
records are not received.  The problem is consistent in both cases - such Stop 
packets didn't recorded in radacct file and MySQL database. I've no idea 
whether the stop packet sent to radius server was not recorded, or if  stop 
packet was not sent from AP.   As we're using Aruba AP, I wonder if Stop 
packet will be missed under particular situation, e.g. session timeout, 
disconnect without proper logout, etc., or if I configured our radius servers 
incorrectly so that some stop packets are not received or recorded.

No. UDP is not 100% reliable and packets get lost from time to time on a
busy network.

Meanwhile, I'd also like to know if there is any solution to clean up such 
orphan records if they can't be avoided.

checkrad.pl script cleans up stale sessions for Simultaneous-Use checks.
You can use it to do the same for every session. You have a list of NAS
types it works with in clients.conf.

Ivan Kalik
Kalik Informatika ISP

Would anyone please help?  Sorry for the newbie question.  Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,
/ST Wong


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