> >> Dear MZ (Brian, isn't it?),
> >
> >Nope, his Mom calls him Megazone, so that is his name.
> >
> >> I tire of your repeated disdain for the very frequent requests for a
> >> multiple-login solution. The attitude evidenced in the above post
> >> crosses the line and borders on rude.
> >
> >But he's right and explained why. RADIUS isn't set up to stop multiple
> logins.
Ok folks...enuff is enuff. No software package is ever complete for 100%
of all situations in the field. Limiting users to one login can be done
in perl or expect or c++ or even in unix. For nt users you're probally
limited to perl or c++. In nt I doubt visual basic can handle it. Rather
than spend lots of bandwidth discussing what names to call each other why
not invest 60$ in a book and code what you need? Everyone associated in
the group has to have had some type of computer experience and a simple
language like perl won't be that hard to pick up. And yes perl is
avaliable for nt. Check ftp.uu.net/gnu as one source and I'm told
www.perl.com as another site.
Now... lets consider the pros + cons of a multipe login loggerout....
Situation 1, and isp has one portmaster. We have our fancy multiple login
scan program (fmlsp) and lets say we're really good and code it in c++.
Lets say we set it up in a cron job for unix/linux and we have it running
every 15 minutes. That means every 15 minutes that program is going to
open data files, find out who is supposed to be on the system and then
close datafiles. This happens every 15 minutes 24 hours a day and 7 days
a week.
Don't know about you folks but I wouldn't want to put that kind of demand
on my hard drives.
Situation 2, assume 2 portmasters and again assume c++. Those who do
coding will know why c++ or any binary code is preferable...takes up less
memory and operates twice as fast if not faster..... Now we have a
decision to make.. do we make 2 programs or do we make 1 large one.. ever
constant is the demand on system resources. And that ladies...is the crux
of the problem. How much demand on system resources needs to exist?
Time to digress a bit....
A quick ping on a customer logging in puts their response time at 138 ms.
This is from the server thru the portmaster to their modem. If I ping a
host on the ethernet I get 1.0865 ms response. So that means the
portmaster is tacking on about 135 ms thru its routing of traffic.
Anybody have clients who play online games like quake or mechwarrior or
diablo? Imagine then their response to having their latency time
increased maybe 200x because the portmaster has to do a constant check of
who's on..
Perhaps the easiest and most direct way of handling multiple logins is
simply to meter the clients service. RADIUS will log both concurrent
logins meaning time is kept for the two sessions and added together at
the end of the month for those lucky enough to raquick....
Boils down to this I would not want radius or the portmaster to track
multiple logins if it seriously affected the latency time. I'm not sure
if I want to commit a host nt,unix, or linux to constantly scan the
portmasters just to make sure all the customers are behaving. The cost in
labor and in hardware usage is just to much for us. More important things
like web business exists. It really is a question of priorities...how
much are you willing to spend? What's it going to get you in return?
Rob
Robert Hiltibidal Tek Frontiers
Tek Frontiers "Explore the possibilities.."
System Admin <http://www.tekfront.com>
morgan@tekfront.com (217)-241-5112
"People justify their computer for
business and education, but they
use their computer for FUN. " - Alex St John