Acct-Delay-Time missing with RADIUS accounting

[Alan DeKok]

On Feb 22, 2016, at 8:57 AM, Jouni Malinen <j at w1.fi> wrote:
>> 1) RADIUS accounting consumers that do not support the Event-Timestamp
>> attribute but do support the Acct-Delay-Time attribute.
> 
> Are there really such cases? If someone really cares about exact timing,
> I'd recommend using Event-Timestamp.

  I'd be OK with either one.  Realistically, systems that don't support Event-Timestamp are broken and need to die.

> If this is for an intermediate accounting update, it would seem to make
> more sense to just generate a completely new accounting message with
> updated TX/RX statistics..

  Yes.  There isn't a lot of point in retrying accounting packets, when new statistics are available.  Just toss the old packet, and send one with new statistics.

> This sounds like undesired complexity for collecting information that is
> already available from Event-Timestamp and/or Acct-Session-Time
> depending on use. Event-Timestamp looks superior to this Acct-Delay-Time
> mechanism and it should really be easier to modify an accounting server
> (if one does not support that) than add more complex design to all NAS..

  I agree.

> As such, I don't really see the point of doing this without clearly
> identified existing case where this needs to be done at the NAS and the
> server cannot be updated to support newer design (and explanation on why
> it would be possible to update NAS, but not server)..

  It's always easier to update the server.  It's 2016.  If your server doesn't support X, put a FreeRADIUS proxy VM in front of it.  Don't waste everyone *else's* time by making the NAS jump through hoops to support your crappy server.

  Alan DeKok.