Time for action – simulate accounting from an NAS

In Chapter 3, Getting Started with FreeRADIUS we covered the radclient command. This section creates three files that can be used with radclient in order to simulate the accounting packets an NAS typically sends to a RADIUS server.

Files for simulation

The AVPs inside the three files are similar to the AVPs sent from the hostapd program.

Note

hostapd is a daemon used for controlling authentication on Wi-Fi networks. It can be configured to do accounting along with authentication and is typically installed with OpenWRT on Atheros-based Wi-Fi access points. You can also use it to turn a Wi-Fi NIC into an access point on Linux.

When a user's session starts, the NAS will inform the RADIUS server. During the session the NAS may send updates on the session to the RADIUS server and then when the session ends the NAS will also inform the RADIUS server.

Inside these accounting packets is the Acct-Status-Type AVP, which will reflect the session...