RFC 2866 - Accounting ON / Accounting OFF packets

[Arran Cudbard-Bell]

A.L.M.Buxey at lboro.ac.uk wrote:
> Hi,
>
>   
>> Quite. I believe you'll probably run into problems with MyISAM if you've 
>> got a loaded RADIUS server. It's taken around 6 months for serious issues 
>> to occur. We switched over to some new more 'chatty' firmware on our access 
>> points, and that seemed to push it over the edge. Database equivalent of 
>> gridlock, all connections used, authentications starting to fail, not 
>> pretty.
>>
>> Disabled SQL based Accounting for now as the data is used more for show 
>> anyway. Building InnoDB database based around the FR2 schemas.
>>     
>
> we hit a similar wall - and decided to stop doing 'live live live!'
> accounting - use the SQL_LOG and sqlrelay tool to insert the
> accounting updates into the DB as quickly as they can behind the
> scenes.  its wrong to tie up the FreeRADIUS threads with the
> accounting stuff - as , you pointed out, its a lot of SQL grunt
> and that delays everything else.  strangely it is a very sudden
> tipping point too...all it takes is that extra few milliseconds
> and things go to pot rapidly!
>   
Oh yes ! Very spectacular indeed.

The way your doing things seems very sensible. 'live live live!' 
accounting will always run into problems when there are spikes in the 
volume of accounting packets. Course there are still thread limits on 
the server, but at least you've eliminated one of the major bottlenecks.

What was the problem with SQL relay in 2.02 ?


Thanks,
Arran
> alan
> -
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-- 
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