RADIUS Accounting
RFC 2866

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Network Working Group                                          C. Rigney
Request for Comments: 2866                                    Livingston
Category: Informational                                        June 2000
Obsoletes: 2139

                           RADIUS Accounting

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes a protocol for carrying accounting
   information between a Network Access Server and a shared Accounting
   Server.

Implementation Note

   This memo documents the RADIUS Accounting protocol.  The early
   deployment of RADIUS Accounting was done using UDP port number 1646,
   which conflicts with the "sa-msg-port" service.  The officially
   assigned port number for RADIUS Accounting is 1813.

Table of Contents

   1.     Introduction ....................................    2
     1.1    Specification of Requirements .................    3
     1.2    Terminology ...................................    3
   2.     Operation .......................................    4
     2.1    Proxy .........................................    4
   3.     Packet Format ...................................    5
   4.     Packet Types ...................................     7
     4.1    Accounting-Request ............................    8
     4.2    Accounting-Response ...........................    9
   5.     Attributes ......................................   10
     5.1    Acct-Status-Type ..............................   12
     5.2    Acct-Delay-Time ...............................   13
     5.3    Acct-Input-Octets .............................   14
     5.4    Acct-Output-Octets ............................   15
     5.5    Acct-Session-Id ...............................   15

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RFC 2866                   RADIUS Accounting                   June 2000

     5.6    Acct-Authentic ................................   16
     5.7    Acct-Session-Time .............................   17
     5.8    Acct-Input-Packets ............................   18
     5.9    Acct-Output-Packets ...........................   18
     5.10   Acct-Terminate-Cause ..........................   19
     5.11   Acct-Multi-Session-Id .........................   21
     5.12   Acct-Link-Count ...............................   22
     5.13   Table of Attributes ...........................   23
   6.     IANA Considerations .............................   25
   7.     Security Considerations .........................   25
   8.     Change Log ......................................   25
   9.     References ......................................   26
   10.    Acknowledgements ................................   26
   11.    Chair's Address .................................   26
   12.    Author's Address ................................   27
   13.    Full Copyright Statement ........................   28

1.  Introduction

   Managing dispersed serial line and modem pools for large numbers of
   users can create the need for significant administrative support.
   Since modem pools are by definition a link to the outside world, they
   require careful attention to security, authorization and accounting.
   This can be best achieved by managing a single "database" of users,
   which allows for authentication (verifying user name and password) as
   well as configuration information detailing the type of service to
   deliver to the user (for example, SLIP, PPP, telnet, rlogin).

   The RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service) document [2]
   specifies the RADIUS protocol used for Authentication and
   Authorization.  This memo extends the use of the RADIUS protocol to
   cover delivery of accounting information from the Network Access
   Server (NAS) to a RADIUS accounting server.

   This document obsoletes RFC 2139 [1].  A summary of the changes
   between this document and RFC 2139 is available in the "Change Log"
   appendix.

   Key features of RADIUS Accounting are:

      Client/Server Model

          A Network Access Server (NAS) operates as a client of the
          RADIUS accounting server.  The client is responsible for
          passing user accounting information to a designated RADIUS
          accounting server.

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RFC 2866                   RADIUS Accounting                   June 2000

          The RADIUS accounting server is responsible for receiving the
          accounting request and returning a response to the client
          indicating that it has successfully received the request.

          The RADIUS accounting server can act as a proxy client to
          other kinds of accounting servers.