Subject: (radius) Accounting-On question

From: "VICTOR MUSLIN" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:47:11 -0400

Is RADIUS client allowed to send any Accounting packets (Accounting-Start,
Accounting-Stop, Interim-Update) before Accounting-On packet had been
acknowledge? What is the typical pracice? I did not notice this to be
specified in the RFCs I checked.

Similarly with Accounting-Off, is RADIUS client allowed to send any other
packets after sending Accounting-Off? This may be a moot point compared with
the Accounting-On issue.

Thanks.

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From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:52:03 -0700

>packets after sending Accounting-Off? This may be a moot point compared with

My reading of RFC 2866 is that if Accounting-On is sent at all, it should 
be in the first Accounting-Request packet sent from the client after 
reboot, and similarly for Accounting-Off.  However, both Accounting-On and 
Accounting -Off are optional.

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From: "VICTOR MUSLIN" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 17:05:47 -0400

Thank you, Glen, but I don't believe this quite answers the question. What I
am asking is not whether Start/Stop can be sent before Accounting-On is
SENT, but before Accounting-On is ACKNOWLEDGED. (I am assuming that
Accounting-On is acknowledged by Accounting-Response, no?).

Assuming that RADIUS client sends Accounting-On/Off, suppose Accounting-On
does not reach the server...

a) Should Accounting-On be re-transmitted? (probably "yes"),
b) Should the client not send Start/Stop messages until Accounting-On is
acknowledged?
c) If the answer to (b) is "yes", then should no service be allowed on the
NAS until Accounting-On is acknowledged? Alternatively, if the service is
allowed (or if RADIUS client is not a physical NAS and the concept of
"service" is something entirely different), then what should RADIUS client
do with sessions that are starting before Accounting-On is acknowledged?
Queue  up the Accounting Start/Stops?

My assumption is that Accounting-On is most useful when RADIUS server
manages some resources, such as IP pools, based on the session state. Thus
when Accounting-On is received, the server can clean up all sessions in
progress from that client. However, if after RADIUS client restarts an
Accounting-Start reaches the server before Accounting-On, it is likely that
the server will loose state synchronization with the client and will free
resources still in use.

Given that there are lots of implementation, I assume this issue had been
addressed and solved in the past. I am looking for some commonly accepted
practices.

Thanks.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Zorn" <[email-masked]>
To: "VICTOR MUSLIN" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "ietf-radius" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 2:52 PM
Subject: Re: (radius) Accounting-On question

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