Interim Accounting

Interim accounting

An interim accounting update is a RADIUS accounting message that

  • reports changes to key session parameters such as DHCP, HTTP, IP, or roaming state

  • is sent by the network access server (NAS) to the RADIUS server between the start-stop accounting messages, and

  • can be triggered by specific events or at periodic intervals.


Note

The RADIUS accounting requests send data, such as VLAN ID, authentication methods, and so on, to a session.

RADIUS accounting covers these updates:

  • Interim Updates: When RADIUS accounting covers DHCP_TLVs, HTTP_TLVs, IP, or ROAM (state machine) changes, the updates are referred to as interim updates or interim accounting.

  • Periodic Updates: When RADIUS accounting is specified by a timer value, the updates are referred to as periodic updates.

Disable the interim updates for these reasons:

  • These actions increase network congestion by sending unneeded traffic.

  • They drive up error rates.

  • They impact alarm thresholds and other metrics that are used for venue-authentication performance.

By default, the interim accounting feature is enabled with the aaa accounting Identity default start-stop group radius command.

Feature history for interim accounting

Disable interim accounting (CLI)

Disable interim accounting on a WLAN policy profile using commands.

Before you begin

You must disable the Policy Profile before performing this procedure.

Procedure

Step 1

Enter the global configuration mode.

Example:

Device# configure terminal

Step 2

Configure WLAN policy profile and enter wireless policy configuration mode.

Example:

Device(config)# wireless profile policy default-policy-profile

Step 3

Disable interim accounting.

Example:

Device(config-wireless-policy)# no accounting-interim

Step 4

Return to the privileged EXEC mode.

Example:

Device(config-wireless-policy)# end

Verify interim accounting

To verify the interim accounting updates, run this command:

Device# show wireless profile policy detailed default-policy-profile | s Interim
Interim Accounting Updates: DISABLED