[Citrusdb-users] CitrusDB integration with other applications

Discussion:

liran tal

2007-11-15 11:37:56 UTC

Hi,

Perhaps the citrusdb-users mailing list is not the best place to bring
this issue up although I am also wondering if other users will find it
useful for citrusdb to integrate with a freeradius management application
for different types of billing purposes and provides provisioning support.

On the same note, I'd like to know if any of the developers
is willing to make progress on this issue...

Regards,
Liran.

Paul Yasi

2007-11-15 14:29:35 UTC

Permalink

Hi Liran, I think I got a message from you a bit ago, sorry I never
got back to you about freeradius. I've been busy implementing
CitrusDB for my employer's new wi-fi offering.

Generally CitrusDB could talk to a radius server or other account
authentication system via the Account Activation script, or run that
script nightly in cron using the php cmd line. Then there would need
to be something that would process that output of ADD, ENABLE,
DISABLE, and DELETE requests to actually do something for each account
type in radius or whatnot.

I would be open to including something that talks to freeradius or any
account authentication system.

Paul

Post by liran tal
Hi,
Perhaps the citrusdb-users mailing list is not the best place to bring
this issue up although I am also wondering if other users will find it
useful for citrusdb to integrate with a freeradius management application
for different types of billing purposes and provides provisioning support.
On the same note, I'd like to know if any of the developers
is willing to make progress on this issue...
Regards,
Liran.
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kreg

2007-11-15 17:46:46 UTC

Permalink

That'd help here. We use the default mysql scheme that ships with
freeradius. Currently we are just editing the freeradius database using
phpmyadmin. Soon maybe we will be trying some other front ends found on
sourceforge.

-Kreg

Post by Paul Yasi
Hi Liran, I think I got a message from you a bit ago, sorry I never
got back to you about freeradius. I've been busy implementing
CitrusDB for my employer's new wi-fi offering.
Generally CitrusDB could talk to a radius server or other account
authentication system via the Account Activation script, or run that
script nightly in cron using the php cmd line. Then there would need
to be something that would process that output of ADD, ENABLE,
DISABLE, and DELETE requests to actually do something for each account
type in radius or whatnot.
I would be open to including something that talks to freeradius or any
account authentication system.
Paul

--
Kreg Roenfeldt
Systems Administrator
----------------------------------------
p 208.548.2345
f 208.548.9911
e ***@directcom.com
----------------------------------------
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P.O. Box 270
Rockland, ID 83271-0270

Direct Communications

liran tal

2007-11-18 11:44:01 UTC

Permalink

Hey Kreg,

No need to edit the freeradius database using phpmyadmin, that's why I wrote
daloRADIUS - it's an interface to manage a mysql (or other databases) deployment
of FreeRADIUS very easily.

daloRADIUS homepage: https://sourceforge.net/projects/daloradius
daloRADIUS wiki: http://daloradius.wiki.sourceforge.net/

I would love to hear from you any comments about it (as well as bug reports
or feature request) and to offer you any help.

I'm hoping we also integrate this freeradius users management with citrusdb
and then we'll have a complete and ideal solution for both management,
accounting, reporting and billing!

Regards,
Liran.

Post by kreg
That'd help here. We use the default mysql scheme that ships with
freeradius. Currently we are just editing the freeradius database using
phpmyadmin. Soon maybe we will be trying some other front ends found on
sourceforge.
-Kreg
Hi Liran, I think I got a message from you a bit ago, sorry I never
got back to you about freeradius. I've been busy implementing
CitrusDB for my employer's new wi-fi offering.
Generally CitrusDB could talk to a radius server or other account
authentication system via the Account Activation script, or run that
script nightly in cron using the php cmd line. Then there would need
to be something that would process that output of ADD, ENABLE,
DISABLE, and DELETE requests to actually do something for each account
type in radius or whatnot.
I would be open to including something that talks to freeradius or any
account authentication system.
Paul
Hi,
Perhaps the citrusdb-users mailing list is not the best place to bring
this issue up although I am also wondering if other users will find it
useful for citrusdb to integrate with a freeradius management application
for different types of billing purposes and provides provisioning support.
On the same note, I'd like to know if any of the developers
is willing to make progress on this issue...
Regards,
Liran.
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_______________________________________________
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--
Kreg Roenfeldt
Systems Administrator
----------------------------------------
p 208.548.2345
f 208.548.9911
----------------------------------------
150 South Main
P.O. Box 270
Rockland, ID 83271-0270
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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liran tal

2007-11-18 11:41:28 UTC

Permalink

Hey Paul,

Post by Paul Yasi
Hi Liran, I think I got a message from you a bit ago, sorry I never
got back to you about freeradius. I've been busy implementing
CitrusDB for my employer's new wi-fi offering.

Thanks for your reply and your positive intentions to extend CitrusDB
to integrate with other applications. Goodluck with that new wi-fi offering
implementation :)

Post by Paul Yasi
Generally CitrusDB could talk to a radius server or other account
authentication system via the Account Activation script, or run that
script nightly in cron using the php cmd line.

Okey so here's the story about the FreeRADIUS integration.
FreeRADIUS itself has no such provisioning system in the terms of
sending it some packet and it would add a user to database or alter
it's state but rather it works in such a way that it relies on a backend
database which it connects to (can be many of the available: mysql, sqlite,
pgsql, etc or even on flat text files though that really doesn't suit any large
setup so we can discard that).

So basically what most of the people do is setup a mysql radius
database with the
schema they provide and configure freeradius's sql config file with
access to the
database and configure the main freeradius's daemon config file to authorize,
authenticate and perform accounting based on the mysql database module that
they have.

So here is what I am thinking.
I have installed CitrusDB to play with it a little but haven't found the time
to actually go through all of the options there so if you say that there's an
Account Activation script thing then we can create a perl script which would use
a database abstraction layer so that it is portable for other
databases than just
mysql and when an account is created on citrusdb it will also create the
user profile for the radius system on the radius database.

Post by Paul Yasi
Then there would need
to be something that would process that output of ADD, ENABLE,
DISABLE, and DELETE requests to actually do something for each account
type in radius or whatnot.

If I understand correctly, the Account Activation script is only for when a new
account is created. Definitely it is required to also have such a
script for other
account changes like a DELETion of an account and so on.

Anyway,
what I'm currently wondering is also that some people may create radius users
through daloRADIUS (the radius web management) and also daloRADIUS would have
to have the same scripting capabilities to add the user to CitrusDB database.
This definitely requires more thinking...

Post by Paul Yasi
I would be open to including something that talks to freeradius or any
account authentication system.

Thanks, I'm looking forward for a good billing integration that would make
both of our solutions ideal for everyone.

Regards,
Liran.

Post by Paul Yasi

--
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Open Source Customer Care & Billing System
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Paul Yasi

2007-11-26 14:26:28 UTC

Permalink

I'm not sure what daloRadius brings to the table, there is nothing in
there for citrusdb to send it's account activation/deactivation data
to. If daloRadius had an import feature, I could make citrusdb have
an option to export data in your format, or one could provide a module
that takes information from citrusdb's account activation/deactivation
format and inserts/update/deletes it, into freeRadius' database.

I don't think CitrusDB needs to know about radius accounting. One
could import the radius usage data into CitrusDB for billing, using a
service's usage mutiple field to have it say charge 5 cents a minute
for call time or megabytes of transfer, whatever usage you are billing
on. It's loosely connected to things through import and export
ability, which can be done inside of php command line cron scripts if
one is looking for automation. This would allow one to integrate it
with many different systems, not just radius.

Paul

Post by liran tal
Hey Paul,
Any updates? haven't heard from you in a while...
You're welcome to join me to #daloradius on freenode if you
can spend some irc time to chat about things....
Regards,
Liran.

Post by liran tal
Hey Paul,
There's no import of users functionality in daloRADIUS.
It would be somewhat strange to implement that because
a user without any attributes is really meaningless and I can't
think of any other platform that provides this so called export
option of users and their attributes.
Also daloRADIUS doesn't need it's own import functionality
because there's no daloRADIUS-specific database but rather
it makes use of FreeRADIUS's default schema radius database
to work with users and such.
I can give you a simple example.
When a user is created on daloRADIUS with password 1234 and given
the attribute Expiration with value 01 01 2008 then daloRADIUS adds
Username: User1
Password: 1234
Expiration: 01 01 2008
(this is ofcourse just an example).
So to continue with the analogy what CitrusDB would do to provision a user
once adding it is somewhat the same. I don't think thought that you need to
hard-code this database sql query but rather do use the account scripts so that
users can tweak it to their own databases and installation setups.
With that said - I have looked at CitrusDB yesterday and had some
difficulty finding
how to specify users and their billing options - i.e: prepaid and such.
Does CitrusDB support prepaid accounts?
Also billing is something that would have to be performed based upon the
radius database and it's radacct table which contains all the accounting
information (aka CDR or PDR).
What do you think?
By the way have you looked at phpmyprepaid? This is what the target audience
of users using freeradius and daloradius for hotspots and other
business management
needs for billing.
I'm in #daloradius on freenode if you want to catch up for a chat.
Regards,
Liran.

The Account Activation script is meant to actually add, enable,
disable, and delete users. It doesn't actually work correctly in the
latest release. I'm working on fixing it as we speak. The idea
behind account activation is to create a text file list that can be
imported into an account management utility, whether that is
daloradius, a custom script, or some other kind of control panel that
one might use.
Is there a way to import a list of users into daloRadius if I want to
activate and deactivate a bunch of different users with different
attributes?
Paul

Post by liran tal
Hey Paul,

Post by Paul Yasi
Hi Liran, I think I got a message from you a bit ago, sorry I never
got back to you about freeradius. I've been busy implementing
CitrusDB for my employer's new wi-fi offering.

Thanks for your reply and your positive intentions to extend CitrusDB
to integrate with other applications. Goodluck with that new wi-fi offering
implementation :)

Okey so here's the story about the FreeRADIUS integration.
FreeRADIUS itself has no such provisioning system in the terms of
sending it some packet and it would add a user to database or alter
it's state but rather it works in such a way that it relies on a backend
database which it connects to (can be many of the available: mysql, sqlite,
pgsql, etc or even on flat text files though that really doesn't suit any large
setup so we can discard that).
So basically what most of the people do is setup a mysql radius
database with the
schema they provide and configure freeradius's sql config file with
access to the
database and configure the main freeradius's daemon config file to authorize,
authenticate and perform accounting based on the mysql database module that
they have.
So here is what I am thinking.
I have installed CitrusDB to play with it a little but haven't found the time
to actually go through all of the options there so if you say that there's an
Account Activation script thing then we can create a perl script which would use
a database abstraction layer so that it is portable for other
databases than just
mysql and when an account is created on citrusdb it will also create the
user profile for the radius system on the radius database.

If I understand correctly, the Account Activation script is only for when a new
account is created. Definitely it is required to also have such a
script for other
account changes like a DELETion of an account and so on.
Anyway,
what I'm currently wondering is also that some people may create radius users
through daloRADIUS (the radius web management) and also daloRADIUS would have
to have the same scripting capabilities to add the user to CitrusDB database.
This definitely requires more thinking...

Post by Paul Yasi
I would be open to including something that talks to freeradius or any
account authentication system.

Thanks, I'm looking forward for a good billing integration that would make
both of our solutions ideal for everyone.
Regards,
Liran.

Post by Paul Yasi

--
The CitrusDB Project | http://www.citrusdb.org
Open Source Customer Care & Billing System

liran tal

2007-11-26 15:03:56 UTC

Permalink

Hey Paul,

There is indeed no integration needed between daloRADIUS
and CitrusDB. They are 2 independent platforms.
I do think however that an integration between CitrusDB and
FreeRADIUS's database is required.

You are suggesting though to use the import/export functions
on CitrusDB to these billing tasks though that is not called integration
but rather work-around.

The integration required in my opinion is of type provisioning at first,
which means that when a user is created in CitrusDB database it is also created
in FreeRADIUS's database, same goes for suspension/removal and whatever
other operations which are present in CitrusDB on a user.

Another thing is the ability to produce billing reports straight from CitrusDB
as well as manage a billing profile for FreeRAIDUS's users.
(Both prepaid and postpaid support for billing is required).

Have you taken a look at the freeradius database for the accounting table?
Your solution of importing accounting info for users periodically using cronjobs
and doing basic rate billing based on the time or bandwidth usage is pretty
trivial but that doesn't suit any serious business.

I will be happy to provide you with more detailed information if you
require that. Please don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,
Liran.

Post by Paul Yasi
I'm not sure what daloRadius brings to the table, there is nothing in
there for citrusdb to send it's account activation/deactivation data
to. If daloRadius had an import feature, I could make citrusdb have
an option to export data in your format, or one could provide a module
that takes information from citrusdb's account activation/deactivation
format and inserts/update/deletes it, into freeRadius' database.
I don't think CitrusDB needs to know about radius accounting. One
could import the radius usage data into CitrusDB for billing, using a
service's usage mutiple field to have it say charge 5 cents a minute
for call time or megabytes of transfer, whatever usage you are billing
on. It's loosely connected to things through import and export
ability, which can be done inside of php command line cron scripts if
one is looking for automation. This would allow one to integrate it
with many different systems, not just radius.
Paul

Post by liran tal
Hey Paul,

Post by Paul Yasi
Hi Liran, I think I got a message from you a bit ago, sorry I never
got back to you about freeradius. I've been busy implementing
CitrusDB for my employer's new wi-fi offering.

Thanks for your reply and your positive intentions to extend CitrusDB
to integrate with other applications. Goodluck with that new wi-fi offering
implementation :)

Okey so here's the story about the FreeRADIUS integration.
FreeRADIUS itself has no such provisioning system in the terms of
sending it some packet and it would add a user to database or alter
it's state but rather it works in such a way that it relies on a backend
database which it connects to (can be many of the available: mysql, sqlite,
pgsql, etc or even on flat text files though that really doesn't suit any large
setup so we can discard that).
So basically what most of the people do is setup a mysql radius
database with the
schema they provide and configure freeradius's sql config file with
access to the
database and configure the main freeradius's daemon config file to authorize,
authenticate and perform accounting based on the mysql database module that
they have.
So here is what I am thinking.
I have installed CitrusDB to play with it a little but haven't found the time
to actually go through all of the options there so if you say that there's an
Account Activation script thing then we can create a perl script which would use
a database abstraction layer so that it is portable for other
databases than just
mysql and when an account is created on citrusdb it will also create the
user profile for the radius system on the radius database.

If I understand correctly, the Account Activation script is only for when a new
account is created. Definitely it is required to also have such a
script for other
account changes like a DELETion of an account and so on.
Anyway,
what I'm currently wondering is also that some people may create radius users
through daloRADIUS (the radius web management) and also daloRADIUS would have
to have the same scripting capabilities to add the user to CitrusDB database.
This definitely requires more thinking...

Post by Paul Yasi
I would be open to including something that talks to freeradius or any
account authentication system.

Thanks, I'm looking forward for a good billing integration that would make
both of our solutions ideal for everyone.
Regards,
Liran.

Post by Paul Yasi

--
The CitrusDB Project | http://www.citrusdb.org
Open Source Customer Care & Billing System

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