RFC 2866 - Accounting ON / Accounting OFF packets

[Arran Cudbard-Bell]

David Mitton wrote:
>
> Accounting-On /-Off events do NOT occur for every session.
> They are, as the text says, indicators of the global state of the NAS 
> Accounting.
>
Yes, and that's the point I was making, there can be no Acct-Session-Id 
because Accounting ON / Off events are not session specific... so the 
RFC contradicts itself.
>
> Usually you should get an On event when the NAS powers up and RADIUS 
> starts.
> If a NAS Administrator turns Off accounting, or makes a controlled 
> shut down, then you may see an Off event.
> The purpose is to indicate the liveliness of your accounting stream, 
> and since RADIUS is not a "stateful protocol" this is where scraping 
> stateful session data from Accounting can get into trouble.   To 
> further muddy the water, there is no indication if the Accounting 
> state toggles, that the session state on the NAS is lost or not.
>
They're confusing, and not that informative. I'm wondering whether to just not log them at all. Our APs appear to generate them after any configuration change made to a BSSID or Radio. Nothing else has ever generated them in sufficient quantities as to cause serious problems.

Thanks,
Arran
-- 
Arran Cudbard-Bell (A.Cudbard-Bell at sussex.ac.uk)
Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting Officer
Infrastructure Services | ENG1 E1-1-08 
University Of Sussex, Brighton
EXT:01273 873900 | INT: 3900