in vs. out

[Guy Fraser]

On Thu, 2007-10-04 at 14:39 +0200, Alan DeKok wrote:
> wlan at mac.com wrote:
> > Unfortunately, from a back-end perspective, if having to support a
> > variety of 'broken' commercial vendors, one doesn't have much choice
> > (apart from not supporting these vendors). I guess we have to live with
> > it as it would probably be difficult for these vendors to change their
> > ways now...
> 
>   Acct-Input-Octets has one meaning: the right one.
> 
>   You don't have to interoperate with broken vendors.  You tell users to
> throw the equipment away, and to buy working equipment.
> 

Go get 'em!

I couldn't resist any longer.

RADIUS = Remote Authentication Dial In User Service

A number of us on this list and historically on others have been 
developing radius server and related software. I can't remember 
any of the developers asking what "Input-Octets" or "Output-Octets"
meant.

--- snip ---
5.3.  Acct-Input-Octets

   Description

      This attribute indicates how many octets have been received from
      the port over the course of this service being provided, and can
      only be present in Accounting-Request records where the Acct-
      Status-Type is set to Stop.
--- snip ---

This would be data coming into the NAS from the remote end point {customer}.

--- snip ---
5.4.  Acct-Output-Octets

   Description

      This attribute indicates how many octets have been sent to the
      port in the course of delivering this service, and can only be
      present in Accounting-Request records where the Acct-Status-Type
      is set to Stop.
--- snip ---

This would be data going from the NAS to the remote end point
{customer}.

Unless the reader or translator did not understand English or the parts
of a Dial In service there should be no reason for it to be interpreted
any other way.

If a vendor is unable to comprehend a small concept like in and out, 
I would not trust them to properly resolve more tricky concepts, like 
refunds, so Alan suggestion stands. Throw out the improperly designed 
equipment if the vendor did not just make an error in their manual.
If the error is in the manual and not the equipment, let them know, 
so they can publish an errata. Do a test, figure out which is correct 
the equipment or the manual.