Recommendations for Ensuring Accounting Reliability

[Erdal Emlik]

Hi FreeRADIUS Users,

I am currently working with a RADIUS ecosystem that includes proxies and backend servers, where the proxies forward incoming Accounting-Request packets from NAS devices directly to the backend. In case of issues with the backend servers or their dependent SQL systems, I am exploring ways to prevent the loss of accounting records and ensure reliable processing.

I have reviewed the proxy-robust-accounting <https://freeradius.org/> documentation and am considering a couple of approaches:
	1.	Using the detail module in FreeRADIUS to temporarily store accounting requests locally when the SQL module fails and retry processing them later. However, I am concerned about the potential impact on disk space, especially in high-traffic scenarios or during prolonged outages.
	2.	Forwarding accounting requests from the proxy to an external queue, such as Elasticsearch or Kafka, as an alternative to directly relying on the backend SQL servers during failure scenarios.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the feasibility of these approaches, as well as any recommendations or best practices for safeguarding accounting records in a setup involving proxies and backends.

Your guidance would be greatly appreciated.