Accounting-On and Accounting-Off

For RADIUS servers configured in a RADIUS server policy, the accounting on and off behavior is controlled with the acct-on-off command in the radius-server-policy.

By default, no Accounting-On or Accounting-Off messages are sent (no acct-on-off).

With the acct-on-off command configured in the radius-server-policy:

The Accounting-On or Accounting-Off message is sent to the servers configured in the radius-server-policy, following the configured access-algorithm until an Accounting Response is received. If the first server responds, no message is sent to the other servers.

The Accounting-On message is repeated until an Accounting Response message is received from a RADIUS server: If after the configured retry or timeout timers for each RADIUS server in the RADIUS server no response is received then the process starts again after a fixed one minute wait interval.

The Accounting-Off message is attempted once: If after the configured retry or timeout timers for each RADIUS server in the RADIUS server policy no response is received then no new attempt is made.

It is possible to block a RADIUS server policy until an Accounting Response is received from one of the RADIUS servers in the RADIUS server policy that acknowledges the reception of an Accounting-On. The RADIUS server policy cannot be used by applications for sending RADIUS messages until the state becomes ‟Not Blocked”. This is achieved with the optional ‟oper-state-change” flag, for example:

config
    aaa
        radius-server-policy "aaa-server-policy-1" create
            acct-on-off oper-state-change
            servers
                router "Base"
                server 1 name "server-1"
            exit
        exit
    exit

If multiple RADIUS server policies are in use for different applications (for example, authentication and accounting) and an Accounting-On must be send for only one RADIUS server policy, it is possible to tie the acct-on-off states of both policies together using an acct-on-off-group. With this configuration, it is possible to block the authentication servers until the accounting servers are available. An acct-on-off-group can be referenced by:

config
    aaa
        acct-on-off-group "group-1" create
            description "Grouping of radius-server-policies acct-on-off"
        exit        
        radius-server-policy "aaa-server-policy-1" create
            acct-on-off oper-state-change group "group-1"
            servers
                router "Base"
                server 1 name "server-1"
            exit
        exit
        radius-server-policy "aaa-server-policy-2" create
            acct-on-off monitor-group "group-1"
            servers
                router "Base"
                server 1 name "server-2"
            exit
        exit

It is possible to force an Accounting-On or Accounting-Off message for a RADIUS server policy with acct-on-off enabled using following CLI commands:

tools perform aaa acct-on [radius-server-policy policy-name] [force]

tools perform aaa acct-off [radius-server-policy policy-name] [force] [acct-terminate-cause number]

If an Accounting-On was sent to the radius-server-policy and it was acknowledged with an Accounting Response then a new Accounting-On can only be sent with the ‟force” flag.

If an Accounting-Off was sent to the radius-server-policy and it was acknowledged with an Accounting Response then a new Accounting-Off can only be sent with the ‟force” flag. The Acct-Terminate-Cause value in the Accounting-Off can be overwritten.

Use the following CLI command to display the Accounting On/Off information for a radius-server-policy:

# show aaa radius-server-policy "aaa-server-policy-3" acct-on-off 
===============================================================================
RADIUS server policy "aaa-server-policy-3" AcctOnOff info
===============================================================================
Oper state                  : on
Session Id                  : 242FFF0000008F512A3985
Last state change           : 02/24/2013 16:06:41
Trigger                     : startUp
Server                      : "server-1"
===============================================================================

The operational state provides following state information: The sending of the Accounting-On or Accounting-Off message is ongoing (sendAcctOn, SendAcctOff), is successfully responded (on, off) or no response received (OffNoResp).

The Session-Id is a unique identifier for each RADIUS server policy accounting Accounting-On/Accounting-Off sequence.

The Trigger field shows what triggered the Accounting On or Accounting Off message. If the radius-server-policy is part of an acct-on-off group then the group name is shown in brackets.

The server field shows which server in the RADIUS server policy responded to the Accounting-On or Accounting-Off message.

To display the acct-on-off state of a radius-server-policy, use the command, for example:

# show aaa radius-server-policy "aaa-server-policy-3"             
===============================================================================
RADIUS server policy "aaa-server-policy-3"
===============================================================================
Description                 : (Not Specified)
Acct Request script policy  : script-policy-1
Auth Request script policy  : script-policy-1
Accept script policy        : script-policy-1
Acct-On-Off                 : Enabled (state Blocked)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RADIUS server settings
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Router                      : "Base"
Source address              : (Not Specified)
Access algorithm            : direct
Retry                       : 3
Timeout (s)                 : 5
Hold down time (s)          : 30
Last management change      : 02/20/2013 13:32:05
===============================================================================
===============================================================================
Servers for "aaa-server-policy-3"
===============================================================================
Idx Name                             Address         Port        Oper State
                                                     Auth/Acct   
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1   server-3                         172.16.1.10     1812/1813   unknown
===============================================================================

The Acct-On-Off field indicates if the sending of Accounting-On and Accounting-Off messages is enabled or disabled. If enabled, the oper-state is displayed: state Blocked or state Not Blocked. When Blocked, the radius-server-policy cannot be used to send RADIUS messages.

To display acct-on-off-group information, use following command, for example:

# show aaa acct-on-off-group "group-1" 
===============================================================================
Acct-On-Off-Group Information
===============================================================================
acct on off group name               : group-1
  - controlling Radius-Server-policy :  
        aaa-server-policy-1
  - monitored by Radius-Serer-policy :  
        aaa-server-policy-2

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nbr of Acct-on-off-groups displayed : 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================