First, RADIUS protocol is stateless, so keeping the last known session
id is implementation specific and may not be standardized.
Second, in a complex network the RADIUS server that has the state
might be down when the NAS comes up. What then? Unless you have a shared
database, which most low-end systems won't have you are hosed.
Third, it is the NAS that knows the proper state of the session, not
the RADIUS server. What happens if NAS sends session 123 to the server
and goes down then, when it comes back up it asks for the last session,
but the packet for session 123 was delayed somewhere in the network or
due to some processing, so RADIUS sends back to NAS 122, which was the
last session id that actually reached the server then. This would lead
to duplicate session ids...
And I am not even addressing scenarios with intermediate proxies...
So, it's not as simple as it may seem :-(
On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Zivojnovic Ranko wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Regarding your discussion on this matter, I would like to make
> an suggestion:
>
> Why don't authors of RADIUS and ComOS implement some sort of synchronisation
> between the client and the server on the accounting issues. Only thing
> that I think that should be syncronised is the "Session ID". So
> when the PM (RADIUS client) reboots, it sends info like: "Hey! I've
> just rebooted, where was I?", then the server says "Oh, just a sec
> ... Here you go: Last-Acct-Session-ID = "000EAF6D". ".
>
> When the server reboots (RADIUS restart), it should either ask client
> about the "Last-Acct-Session-ID" or to have it somewhere in its records.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ranko
>
>
> --
> Zivojnovic Ranko,
> System Engineer ranko@spidernet.net
>
> SpiderNet Services Ltd., Tel: +357 2 459-359
> Nicosia, Cyprus FAX: +357 2 459-470
>
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