RADIUS attribute 40 · type integer

Acct-Status-Type

Acct-Status-Type (attribute 40) says what an accounting record is: Start (1) when a session begins, Stop (2) when it ends, Interim-Update (3) for periodic usage snapshots.

Also searched as: Accounting Start Stop, Acct-Status-Type Interim-Update. Defined in RFC 2866.

What it means

Every RADIUS Accounting-Request declares its purpose through Acct-Status-Type. Start opens a session, Stop closes it (carrying the session's totals and a termination cause), and Interim-Update reports usage mid-session. Accounting-On (7) and Accounting-Off (8) signal a NAS reboot, telling the server to close any sessions it thought were still open on that device.

How it's used

Read it to drive session state in your accounting store. A missing Stop (NAS lost power, packet dropped) leaves a session open forever. Accounting-On from the rebooted NAS is the signal to clean those up.

Values

• 1: Start, a session has begun.
• 2: Stop, a session has ended (includes final counters).
• 3: Interim-Update, periodic mid-session usage report.
• 7: Accounting-On. The NAS has (re)started; close its stale sessions.
• 8: Accounting-Off, the NAS is shutting down.

Common gotchas

• Lost Stop packets are normal at scale; rely on Interim-Update and Accounting-On to reconcile, not on Stop always arriving.