Can FreeRadius connect to ACT! database?
I've been tinkering with dialup_admin and MySQL with FR 2.1.10. I have been able to get it to work for doing MAC authentication of Motorola Canopy SM's. The problem is that the customer database is hosted on Windows using ACT! It already contains the user account info, radio type, MAC address, and specified rate limits. A couple of choices: 1. Duplicate much of the data from ACT! and populate the MySQL database, then forever perform dual maintenance manually. 2. Use the ACT! SDK to develop a custom add-on to update the Radius database, or to write to flat files and copy them over (yuk.) (or hopefully): 3. Have Radius query the ACT! database directly? Is there an ODBC that can be made to work here? (At this point, I could care less about accounting.) I just need a simple MAC address lookup, and an Accept reply with a few attributes. I'd consider choice #4 if someone knows of one ... Thanks, Jim
Option 4.) Dump data from ACT to a "real" DB, then dump ACT completely? j/k - sorta... Does ACT support triggers and / or stored procedures? If so it would be relatively easy to keep a subset of the ACT DB in MySQL (or whatever) and keep it synchronized. If ACT is ODBC, I'm sure one could install an ODBC driver and write a query in SQL ( or whatever ACT uses). At that point it wouldn't be any different than any other backend data store. There is probably an option 5 - 10 as well. Is this a high volume environment? How many requests per sec / minute are we guestimating? I ask because if it's low you have many more options than if it's high. G -----Original Message----- From: freeradius-users-bounces+ggatten=waddell.com@lists.freeradius.org [mailto:freeradius-users-bounces+ggatten=waddell.com@lists.freeradius.org] On Behalf Of Jim Rice Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2011 5:36 PM To: freeradius-users@lists.freeradius.org Subject: Can FreeRadius connect to ACT! database? I've been tinkering with dialup_admin and MySQL with FR 2.1.10. I have been able to get it to work for doing MAC authentication of Motorola Canopy SM's. The problem is that the customer database is hosted on Windows using ACT! It already contains the user account info, radio type, MAC address, and specified rate limits. A couple of choices: 1. Duplicate much of the data from ACT! and populate the MySQL database, then forever perform dual maintenance manually. 2. Use the ACT! SDK to develop a custom add-on to update the Radius database, or to write to flat files and copy them over (yuk.) (or hopefully): 3. Have Radius query the ACT! database directly? Is there an ODBC that can be made to work here? (At this point, I could care less about accounting.) I just need a simple MAC address lookup, and an Accept reply with a few attributes. I'd consider choice #4 if someone knows of one ... Thanks, Jim - List info/subscribe/unsubscribe? See http://www.freeradius.org/list/users.html <font size="1"> <div style='border:none;border-bottom:double windowtext 2.25pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'> </div> "This email is intended to be reviewed by only the intended recipient and may contain information that is privileged and/or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, use, dissemination, disclosure or copying of this email and its attachments, if any, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender by return email and delete this email from your system." </font>
Hi Gary, Low volume. Since these are the SM's, they will stay connected once booted. The only time an SQL query would be needed is when something gets added or changed. A handful per day. That's why it isn't really worth trying to duplicate the entire database and maintain two copies. On the other hand, do I really want Radius to depend on ACT! as a single point of failure? A more robust solution would be to have a couple radius servers, and a couple database engines on the back end that are in sync for possible failover. There is only one ACT! box. By putting what I need into the Radius system (linux boxen), if ACT! should fail, Radius won't. It might not be getting any updates, but it won't bring down the entire network. I've come full circle here. I think I need to spend some time with ACT! and convince it to trigger an update in the MySQL database (and reboot the SM to force a new access-request). Just not sure what I will need on the FreeRadius side, if any. It might just be only between ACT! and MySQL. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Gatten" <Ggatten@waddell.com> To: "'FreeRadius users mailing list'" <freeradius-users@lists.freeradius.org> Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2011 03:52 PM Subject: RE: Can FreeRadius connect to ACT! database?
Option 4.) Dump data from ACT to a "real" DB, then dump ACT completely? j/k - sorta... Does ACT support triggers and / or stored procedures? If so it would be relatively easy to keep a subset of the ACT DB in MySQL (or whatever) and keep it synchronized.
If ACT is ODBC, I'm sure one could install an ODBC driver and write a query in SQL ( or whatever ACT uses). At that point it wouldn't be any different than any other backend data store.
There is probably an option 5 - 10 as well. Is this a high volume environment? How many requests per sec / minute are we guestimating? I ask because if it's low you have many more options than if it's high.
G
An update ... I now have a Windows Server 2008 running ACT! 2010 Premium with Visual Studio C# 2010 Express as a development environment. I am adding a Control Button that will ODBC connect to the FR server where the MySQL database lives and provide user updates. Thanks to all (Gary, Alan ...) For those that are morbidly curious, I'll let you know how this all works.
On 2011/04/06 12:52 AM, Gary Gatten wrote:
Option 4.) Dump data from ACT to a "real" DB, then dump ACT completely? j/k - sorta... Does ACT support triggers and / or stored procedures? If so it would be relatively easy to keep a subset of the ACT DB in MySQL (or whatever) and keep it synchronized.
If ACT is ODBC, I'm sure one could install an ODBC driver and write a query in SQL ( or whatever ACT uses). At that point it wouldn't be any different than any other backend data store.
There is probably an option 5 - 10 as well. Is this a high volume environment? How many requests per sec / minute are we guestimating? I ask because if it's low you have many more options than if it's high.
Hi all, ACT is actually a CRM system. Unsure what database it uses, but I suspect it is Access Based (that horrible M$ thing) My suggestion would be to use a php script (called using rlm_exec) that can query the ACT database directly. Php can query weird and wonderful databases using odbc, and rlm_exec can call any php script. Cheers, -- Johan Meiring Cape PC Services CC Tel: (021) 883-8271 Fax: (021) 886-7782 ------------------------------------------------------- Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should read Cape PC Service's email disclaimer at: http://www.pcservices.co.za/disclaimer.html -------------------------------------------------------
participants (3)
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Gary Gatten -
Jim Rice -
Johan Meiring