Handling Unresponsive Servers; Accounting And System Shutdowns; Limitations With Nat; Radius Advanced Settings - D-Link NetDefend DFL-210 User Manual

2.3.7. Handling Unresponsive Servers

Firewalls. This means that accounting information is automatically updated on both cluster members
whenever a connection is closed. Two special accounting events are also used by the active unit to
keep the passive unit synchronized:
• An AccountingStart event is sent to the inactive member in an HA setup whenever a response
has been received from the accounting server. This specifies that accounting information should
be stored for a specific authenticated user.
• A problem with accounting information synchronization could occur if an active unit has an
authenticated user for whom the associated connection times out before it is synchronized on the
inactive unit. To get around this problem, a special AccountingUpdate event is sent to the
passive unit on a timeout and this contains the most recent accounting information for
connections.
2.3.7. Handling Unresponsive Servers
A question arises in the case of a client that sends an AccountingRequest START packet which the
RADIUS server never replies to. NetDefendOS will re-send the request after the user-specified
number of seconds. This will however mean that a user will still have authenticated access while
NetDefendOS is trying to contact to the accounting server.
Only after NetDefendOS has made three attempts to reach the server will it conclude that the
accounting server is unreachable. The administrator can use the NetDefendOS advanced setting
Allow on error to determine how this situation is handled. If this setting is enabled then an already
authenticated user's session will be unaffected. If it is not enabled, any affected user will
automatically be logged out even if they have already been authenticated.

2.3.8. Accounting and System Shutdowns

In the case that the client for some reason fails to send a RADIUS AccountingRequest STOP packet,
the accounting server will never be able to update its user statistics, but will most likely believe that
the session is still active. This situation should be avoided.
In the case that the NetDefend Firewall administrator issues a shutdown command while
authenticated users are still online, the AccountingRequest STOP packet will potentially never be
sent. To avoid this, the advanced setting Logout at shutdown allows the administrator to explicitly
specify that NetDefendOS must first send a STOP message for any authenticated users to any
configured RADIUS servers before commencing with the shutdown.

2.3.9. Limitations with NAT

The User Authentication module in NetDefendOS is based on the user's IP address. Problems can
therefore occur with users who have the same IP address.
This can happen, for example, when several users are behind the same network using NAT to allow
network access through a single external IP address. This means that as soon as one user is
authenticated, traffic coming through that NAT IP address could be assumed to be coming from that
one authenticated user even though it may come from other users on the same network.
NetDefendOS RADIUS Accounting will therefore gather statistics for all the users on the network
together as though they were one user instead of individuals.

2.3.10. RADIUS Advanced Settings

The following advanced settings are available with RADIUS accounting:
Allow on error
If there is no response from a configured RADIUS accounting server when sending accounting data
for a user that has already been authenticated, then enabling this setting means that the user will
Chapter 2. Management and Maintenance
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