Accounting Services

It's often required that a RADIUS server logs accounting records to a file. Here are described two most wide-spread log file types.

CSV Accounting

One of the widely used formats of accounting records is so-called CSV (Comma Separated Values) format, where every accounting record value is separated by some character (usually by comma), and every new record starts on a new line. This format is supported by most billing and accounting systems and may be imported to the major spreadsheet or relational database applications.

As an option, logfile may contain names of logged attributes in the order as they appear in the file. Here's an example of how RADIUS accounting packets are logged in this format:

             
Acct-Session-Id,User-Name,NAS-IP-Address,Acct-Terminate-Cause,Acct-Session-Time
"131234","localadmin",192.168.2.4,User-Request,15
"131235","Wictor",192.168.2.4,Lost-Carrier,2234
"131236","Marry",192.168.2.4,User-Request,2355
"131237","manager",192.168.2.4,Session-Timeout,3600

Livingston Accounting

One of the widely used formats of accounting records is so-called 'Livingston', or Lucent format as it was introduced by Livingston RADIUS server. It's supported by most billing and accounting systems.

Livingston accounting format records are multi-line records with one attribute = value pair listed per line, and with records separated by a blank line. Here's an example of how RADIUS accounting packets are logged:

             
Tue Apr 08 10:21:24 2003
        Acct-Session-Id = "8732423"
        User-Name = "localadmin"
        NAS-IP-Address = 192.168.2.4
        NAS-Port = 1121
        NAS-Port-Type = ISDN
        Acct-Status-Type = Start
        Acct-Authentic = RADIUS
        Calling-Station-Id = "8615681265"
        Service-Type = Framed-User
        Framed-Protocol = PPP
        Framed-IP-Address = 217.32.56.12
        Acct-Delay-Time = 0
                
Tue Apr 01 10:21:34 2003
        Acct-Session-Id = "8732423"
        User-Name = "localadmin"
        NAS-IP-Address = 192.168.2.4
        NAS-Port = 1121
        NAS-Port-Type = ISDN
        Acct-Status-Type = Stop
        Acct-Session-Time = 10
        Acct-Authentic = RADIUS
        Acct-Input-Octets = 8
        Acct-Output-Octets = 20
        Calling-Station-Id = "8615681265"
        Acct-Terminate-Cause = User-Request
        Service-Type = Framed-User
        Framed-Protocol = PPP
        Framed-IP-Address = 217.32.56.12
        Acct-Delay-Time = 0

Both these formats are supported by ClearBox Server.