"Accounting-On" and "Accouting-Off"

[Arran Cudbard-Bell]

> On 2 Dec 2014, at 19:44, Matthew Newton <mcn4 at LEICESTER.AC.UK> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, Dec 02, 2014 at 09:33:02PM +0000, Frank Wei wrote:
>> Please somebody to explain to me when we have to use "Accounting-off" and "Accounting-on"?
> 
> It's not that you have to use them - just some NAS's will send
> them when they start up / shut down. I don't think I've ever seen
> any of our kit send an accounting-off though (they don't usually
> get a chance before the power goes... :) ), and it's rare to see
> an accounting-on.

Some HP ProCurve kit does :)

There are definitely implementations out there in the wild.

Accounting-Off/On are essentially the same thing, but the Accounting-Off (if it's sent)
gets you more accurate stop times, as it's sent at the time the sessions are terminated
instead of when the NAS warms up enough after boot, to start sending RADIUS packets 
again.

Accounting-On is a failsafe in case a JCB digs through the main power feed to your machine
room.

Arran Cudbard-Bell <a.cudbardb at freeradius.org>
FreeRADIUS development team

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