Radius data counting questions

[Alan DeKok]

On Nov 10, 2015, at 1:17 AM, Oliver Paget <oliver at hostednetwork.net.au> wrote:
> I've been devving with freeradius with mysql for my DSL infrastructure (FreeRADIUS Version 2.1.12, for host x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu, built on Oct  3 2012 at 01:22:51) It is being sent 64 byte accounting packets from a cisco router, aka my dev LNS.
> I have been trying to find a viable method for counting data for my test LNS but I have noticed this behaviour.
> 
> To get the total data used for a user I simply sum(AcctOutputOctets) to find the total amount of data transferred for that user ever. When I query the DB a second time an hour later, sometimes the value is less than the previous time.

  All accounting data is sent from the NAS.  If the data is wrong, I'd start of by checking the NAS.

  i.e. is the NAS sending the *right* data?  Probably not...

> Can somebody confirm for me that this is either broken or intended as im not sure I am knowledgeable enough to determine whether freeradius has a specific reason for this.

  It's not supposed to happen.  But in RADIUS, many NAS implementations are terrible.

  Alan DeKok.