Error: WARNING: Unresponsive child

[Alan Buxey]

Hi,
> Hello all,
> 
> I am continuously getting this error message on my
> /var/log/radius/radius.log file:
> 
> Mon Sep 28 18:26:55 2009 : Error: WARNING: Unresponsive child (id
> 1094719808) for request 24026 (in component accounting module
> rlm_exec)
> 
> In effect, I got a timeout on account start and stop which resulted
> that even the user is able to authenticate and authorize, accounting
> side fails.
> 
> I have attached my /etc/raddb/radiusd.conf for more information.


<loads of system tech detail snipped>

this sort of message means that the child process is taking
ages to do what is asked of it. in this case, its accounting and
the accounting config is trying to run some external executable which
is taking a while to do its thing.  i see you are using PERL - there
are known issues with PERL and CentOS/RHEL is regards to process start up 
time - with rlm_exec you are having to start this up and connect etc
everything - you'd be better off using the rlm_perl PERL module to
do your work - check out the example.pl - see how to call it for the 
accounting and then just call 'perl' in your accounting config rather
than that rlm_exec method.

better still - ditch 1.1.x , move to 2.1.x and use a virtual server for
accounting with asynchronous buffered access so that accounting doesnt
affect your live authentication etc


alan