Setting RADIUS timers
About RADIUS timers
The device uses the following types of timers to control communication with a RADIUS server:
Server response timeout timer (response-timeout)—Defines the RADIUS request retransmission interval. The timer starts immediately after a RADIUS request is sent. If the device does not receive a response from the RADIUS server before the timer expires, it resends the request.
Server quiet timer (quiet)—Defines the duration to keep an unreachable server in blocked state. If one server is not reachable, the device changes the server status to blocked, starts this timer for the server, and tries to communicate with another server in active state. After the server quiet timer expires, the device changes the status of the server back to active.
Real-time accounting timer (realtime-accounting)—Defines the interval at which the device sends real-time accounting packets to the RADIUS accounting server for online users.
Restrictions and guidelines
Consider the number of secondary servers when you configure the maximum number of RADIUS packet transmission attempts and the RADIUS server response timeout timer. If the RADIUS scheme includes many secondary servers, the retransmission process might be too long and the client connection in the access module, such as Telnet, can time out.
When the client connections have a short timeout period, a large number of secondary servers can cause the initial authentication or accounting attempt to fail. In this case, reconnect the client rather than adjusting the RADIUS packet transmission attempts and server response timeout timer. Typically, the next attempt will succeed, because the device has blocked the unreachable servers to shorten the time to find a reachable server.
Make sure the server quiet timer is set correctly. A timer that is too short might result in frequent authentication or accounting failures. This is because the device will continue to attempt to communicate with an unreachable server that is in active state. A timer that is too long might temporarily block a reachable server that has recovered from a failure. This is because the server will remain in blocked state until the timer expires.
A short real-time accounting interval helps improve accounting precision but requires many system resources. When there are 1000 or more users, set the interval to 15 minutes or longer.
Procedure
Enter system view.
system-view
Enter RADIUS scheme view.
radius scheme radius-scheme-name
Set RADIUS timers. Choose the following tasks as needed:
Set the RADIUS server response timeout timer.
timer response-timeout seconds
The default setting is 3 seconds.
Set the quiet timer for the servers.
timer quiet minutes
The default setting is 5 minutes.
Set the real-time accounting timer.
timer realtime-accounting interval [ second ]
The default setting is 12 minutes.