[freeside] GNU-Radius

[ivan]

On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 03:16:37AM +0000, Rene Dudfield wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> >
> >Hi!
> >
> >Any body using GNU-RADIUS with Freeside?
> >
> >I read that freeside generates a text file "users" or passwd file for
> >cistron to authenticate.
> >But how does freeside get the accounting info coming in from the TS to the
> >Cistron plain text detail file?
> >
> >Iam thinking of replacing cistron 1.6.4 for gnu-radius because it supports
> >Mysql autethication and accounting. What do you all think?
> >
> >Thanks a lot
> >Max
> 
> Sounds good in theory.
> 
> I think a more robust way is to authenticate off files generated by from the 
> database(add and update files, never delete).
> 
> Then have a script to query the db on which users to remove from the files.

This is a horrible idea and a waste of computing power and programming
time.  Trying to parse and modify an existing users file, ugh.

If you prefer plaintext files, simply generate them anew from the database
with a cron job using svc_acct.export

> This way if your db goes down your users can still log in(and don't wake you 
> up in the middle of the night).

You don't have to run a centralized database for RADIUS.  Run one on each
RADIUS server, and have reduntant RADIUS servers.  One-way replication is
easy. 

> Accounting into the db is fine as long as you don't mind loosing data when 
> your db is down.  Some radius servers do both(xtradius does).

MySQL and PostgreSQL are reliable.  There's no reason to avoid using them.

-- 
meow
_ivan