Using Radius To Activate Subscriber Service Sessions; Figure 31: Comparing Radius Login And Radius Coa Methods - Juniper JUNOSE SOFTWARE 11.2.X - BROADBAND ACCESS CONFIGURATION GUIDE 7-20-2010 Configuration Manual

JunosE 11.2.x Broadband Access Configuration Guide

Using RADIUS to Activate Subscriber Service Sessions

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(volume and time) configurations. The two methods differ in how Service Manager
activates a subscriber service session:
RADIUS login method—The service session is activated when the subscriber logs in.
At login, RADIUS verifies that the Activate-Service attribute is configured in the
subscriber's RADIUS record. RADIUS then uses vendor-specific attributes (VSAs) in
the Access-Accept packet to activate the service session for the subscriber. This method
is useful when your subscribers are not currently logged in.
RADIUS CoA method—Supports dynamic service selection for subscribers. For example,
the subscriber might have logged in without a service, or might have used the RADIUS
login method to activate a service at login. If no service was activated at login (because
of no Activate-Service attribute in the user's RADIUS record), you can later use the
CoA method and a separate RADIUS record to create a subscriber session and activate
a service session for the subscriber. Or, if the RADIUS login method was used and the
subscriber already has an active service session, you can use the CoA method and a
new RADIUS record to activate a new service session for the subscriber (and optionally
deactivate the existing service session). The RADIUS CoA method is useful when you
have a large number of users already logged in through RADIUS and you want to
activate new services for them. This method is also used for the guided entrance service
described in "Guided Entrance Service Definition Example" on page 675.
The RADIUS CoA method also supports the use of mutex groups to create mutex
services. See "Using Mutex Groups to Activate and Deactivate Subscriber Services" on
page 648.
Figure 31 on page 642 compares the two RADIUS-based methods.

Figure 31: Comparing RADIUS Login and RADIUS CoA Methods

To use RADIUS to activate subscriber service sessions, you create a RADIUS record that
includes the Activate-Service VSA. For the RADIUS login method, this RADIUS record is
used by the Access-Accept message to start Service Manager and activate the service
when the subscriber logs in.
For the RADIUS CoA method, the service provider uses a CoA-Request message to
activate and deactivate the service for the subscriber who is already logged in.
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