[freeside] Importing & access to radius usage info within Freeside

rls-freeside at powerband.net.au rls-freeside at powerband.net.au
Thu Jun 17 17:30:46 PDT 2004


Hello Ivan,

	Thanks for the reply, some followup questions inline..

ivan wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2004 at 08:20:19PM +0930, rls-freeside at powerband.net.au wrote:
>>	In evaluating Freeside for our ISP, we've come up against
>>a problem of identifying the processes & actions required to
>>load or access radius-based "data usage" (ie: "AcctOutputOctets"
>>& "AcctInputOctets") information for our user accounts in Freeside.
>>[...] Our installation is using the following s/ware systems
>>with Freeside:
>>FreeBSD 4.9
>>FreeRADIUS 0.9.3 using
>>mySQL 4.0.17 for radacct DB logging
>>(we've installed both Freeside 1.4.1 & 1.5.0pre4)
 >>Postgres 7.3
 >>Apache 1.3.29 with mod_perl 1.29
> If you're trying to do much besides time charging (data
> input/output/total charging) or if you want to print overage charges on
> invoices, I'd recommend 1.5, probably CVS HEAD until I get around to
> making another snapshot.

	Understood & I can see the advantages in the latest code,
but I recall a message from you to the list that you're not able
to provide email/free support to people on the latest pre-release code..
Is that correct?

>>Perl 5.8.3 & all req'd Perl modules (notably CGI.pm 2.81,
>>which we had to degrade to from 5.8.3's default installed 3.01)
> Probably perhipheral, but I'm having no problems with current CGI.pm 
> 3.04, if you or anyone else with CGI.pm problems could try 3.04 and 
> verify if it works for them too we'll just depend on that.

	Thanks, will do shortly & we'll report back to the list.

>>	We've configured services of the svc_acct type
>>with an "sqlradius" export selected & setup packages
>>with the "sqlradacct_hour" plan set & the Price Plan
>>for these packages set to the "Base charge + charge per-hour
>>(and for data) from an external sqlradius radacct table".
> You've answered your original question.  That is the correct process
> required for Freeside to be able to access our radacct table.

	We still can't see how this works, sorry, feeling very
clueless. Perhaps our exports are wrong, in that we've got the
following for our sqlradius export:

DBI Src data: DBI:mysql:database=radius;host=XXXX.powerband.net.au
With a valid DB username & password.
The radacct table is within the radius DB for freeradius using mySQL..

	But we also note the default comment for these exports which
says:
"Real-time export of radcheck, radreply and usergroup tables..."

	We're looking for (along the lines of) "Real-time _import_
of radacct tables....".  Does the sqlradius export still do that?
(Note: we don't (at the moment) need Freeside to do auth or such)

>>When customers are added with these packages we can see
>>0 input & output usage in their Account View [...]
>>We note the "attribute_since_sqlradacct" function
>>in cust_svc.pm (in 1.4.1) & the use of it for AcctOutputOctets
>>& AcctInputOctets in view/svc_acct.cgi & edit/part_pkg.cgi
>>for the 'sqlradacct_hour' plan, but where is the actual
>>data imported into or read or processed by freeside on a regular
>>or billing basis? (as opposed to a view basis)
> It isn't.  RADIUS usage data is not imported into Freeside on a regular
> or billing basis.  RADIUS usage data is queried from the RADIUS database
> when necessary, for view or for billing.

	Could you please elaborate further on this process? Of how
& when these queries are made of radius usage data (particularly for
billing. eg: is it part'n'parcel of freeside-daily)?
Does the importing from radacct use the same settings as per the
sqlradius export to do the querying?

> FWIW, The stuff you're examining is pretty unlikely to get updated
> further in on the 1.4 branch, I'd suggest moving to more current code
> for your needs.  As I said, probably CVS HEAD until I get around to
> making another snapshot.

	Agreed, though please see our comment above re: mailinglist
support for those on the pre-release versions.

Many thanks & regards,
Richard.




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