Radius Manager frequently asked questions

Before You buy

Which operating systems are supported?

Almost every Linux system is supported which meets the following conditions:

Our customers successfully installed Radius Manager on various systems, including Redhat 8-9, Fedora Core 2-12, Centos 4-5, Suse 8-9, Slackware, Debian 4, Mandrake, Ubuntu 7-8-9 etc. On older system it is necessary to upgrade the components: MySQL, PHP etc.

We always encourage our customers to use Fedora Core 8 or a never Linux system. It is the most complete Linux system available nowadays and the installation of Radius Manager takes only 20-40 minutes on it (including the installation of missing packages using YUM). You can download Fedora Core installation media from the following URL:

http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora

If You have a non standard Linux distribution, please contact us before You purchase Radius Manager system.

Why Radius Manager is better than other, similar systems?

If You are using a free RADIUS billing solution, You have to combine numerous standalone applications to get a complete working billing system, not mentioning the required time and the knowledge You need to get it to work.

When You purchase Radius Manager You will get all the required components in one package at a very affordable price. And a big difference: if You purchase Radius Manager system from us, You will not get only the software itself, but You will also get a free remote installation support! Till now all our customers have successfully installed Radius Manager system on their Linux servers.

Can I customize the look and feel of Radius Manager?

Yes, You can customize the design and language of the system easily. You have to edit the HTML templates with your favorite HTML editor and to translate the language files (if they aren't translated already - read more about the language customization here). The code and graphical design are fully separated.

Are the source codes available?

Radius Manager is a commercial system and it comes without source codes. The source codes are proprietary. The subject of copyright protection and other intellectual property rights are owned by DMA Softlab LLC.

Is there a demo version available?

Yes, You can get a 30 day trial version free of charge. Please contact us if You need a demo version.

I don't know Linux at all. How can I install Radius Manager on my host?

Don't worry, we will set up the application on your host upon your request. This service is free of charge, even for the demo version!

Can I fetch data with my own PHP application from the RADIUS database?

Yes, You can fetch data from the RADIUS tables, but be careful: the database structure is changing from version to version.

How can I migrate users from other RADIUS billing systems to Radius Manager?

Yes, You can. Create a CSV file with the following structure:

username;password;firstname;lastname;address;city;zip;country;state;company;phone;mobile;email;srvid;mac;staticip;usestaticip;
expiration;downlimit;uplimit;totallimit;onlinetime;comment;enabled

The first two columns are mandatory, others are optional. Password must be clear text format (unencrypted). For more details contact us directly.
The import tool is compatible with the current Radius Manager version only.

How can I upgrade my system from older versions?

Yes, there are complete upgrade scripts included in the distribution archive. You can upgrade from every older versions to the newest. Downgrading of databases is not possible, so always create a full database backup before You proceed the upgrade process.

Can I use my DD-WRT router with Radius Manager?

Yes, but with limitations. DD-WRT images have a light version of ChilliSpot system. WRT software doesn't send the correct NAS IP address in RADIUS requests and (usually) doesn't accept remote disconnection packets (POD). Due to this limitations prepaid users cannot be disconnected automatically upon reaching their traffic limits.

Which ChilliSpot versions are supported?

ChilliSpot v 1.1 running on Linux (downloadable from our site) supports all features of Radius Manager, including auto disconnection (traffic, online time and expiration date), multiple NASes, bandwidth limitation etc.

I have a StarOS server. Can I use it with Radius Manager?

StarOS PPPoE server is fully supported by Radius Manager (including speacial features like auto disconnecting of users etc.). StarOS hospot server isn't supported, it has the same problem like WRT version of ChilliSpot.

Can I use my NAS which is not listed on the compatibiliy list?

You can use almost every RADIUS compatible NAS with limitations. The basic functionalities will work in most cases: authentication and accounting. The extra functionalities (auto disconnection, static IP addresses, IP pool selection, remote disconnection etc.) will not work with unsupported NASes. If You have an unsupported NAS, please contact us before You purchase the system.

Can I control my NASes which have dynamic IP address (ADSL etc.)?

Yes. If your NASes are using dynamic or local IP addresses (which are not reachable directly by the RADIUS server), realize the following setup to get them working with Radius Manager:

1. Install a central PPtP server (Mikrotik) in NOC, beside the RADIUS server.
2. Connect all your NASes (Mikrotik, Cisco) to the central PPtP server with PPtP connections. The central PPtP server must have public, static IP (it must be visible for the remote NASes).
3. PPtP server will assign static local IPs to NASes via PPtP tunnels.
4. All NASes will reach the RADIUS server via PPtP tunnels and vice versa (RADIUS UDP protocol).

Using this method NASes can use any IP (public, local, static, dynamic) and RADIUS server will see them on local, static IP addresses, via the PPtP tunnels. Tunnels are used for RADIUS packets only (low traffic), while the heavy Internet traffic is going through the main connection of NAS (ADSL etc.).

Problems during installation

Where can I find the installation manual?

You can find the installation manual in the Radius Manager tar archive in doc folder. You can download the installation archive from our customer's portal.

I am receiving the following error in the browser:

"The encoded file /var/www/html/radiusmanager/funcs.php is corrupt".

Compare the installed php file sizes with the archived ones. They must match exactly. ASCII mode FTP transfer corrupts the IonCube encoded php files. Upload the original tarball to your server and untar it there:

tar xf [filename]

After that, copy the untarred Radius Manager PHP files to your WWW folder.

Also, check the content of the lic.txt. Compare it with the version You've downloaded from our portal.

Bandwidth shaping isn't working! Why?

Check the rmauth executable. Is it working properly? Start rmauth from the UNIX shell:

rmauth [nas-ip] [username] 1

I'm getting a blank page when I'm accessing the admin.php or user.php. What to do?

Check the Apache error log. Maybe You haven't installed php-mysql or license is not installed or corrupt / invalid. Also, if there are PHP memory problems, increase the available memory size in php.ini from default 8 MB to 16 MB.

Upon accessing Radius Manager ACP, I'm getting the following message:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 140 bytes) in /var/www/radiusmanager/misc.php on line 0

Define higher memory limit instead of the default 8 MB in php.ini and restart httpd:

memory_limit = 16M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume

When starting Radius Manager, many debug messages are displayed, like the following:

Notice: Use of undefined constant db_host - assumed 'db_host' in
/usr/local/userman/radiusmanager/definitions.php on line 4

Radius Manager is working properly. You have to disable debug mode in your PHP environment.

I'm getting "The license is not valid for this server", however I have requested a license for the correct MAC address. What is the problem?

NetworkManager service prevents the proper operation of ionCube. IonCube requires httpd to be started after the network startup. Disable NetworkManager service (available on newer Linux variants) and enable Network at boot time to fix this issue. Use Webmin to to this.

IonCube is working properly with configured ethernet interfaces only. Be sure the IP address is configured for your licensed interface (it can be a dummy or real IP).

Problems during usage

How can my customers access their web interface (the UCP - User Control Panel)?

Assuming the default installation, the URL of the user area is:

http://www.yourhost.com/radiusmanager/user.php

I'm getting login failed messages: "You are already logged in: Access denied". Actually, the user is not connected to the NAS.

If You use sim-use = 1 for any user, only one session can be active for a specific account in a same time. Can You find the user already listed in ACP online users list?

If there is a communication problem between the NAS and RADIUS server when the user logs off, the user will be logged off from the NAS, but RADIUS server will know nothing about this logoff event. This is why RADIUS thinks the user is already online and prevents new logins for the same account.

There is a automatic session closing feature available in Radius Manager. After 10 minutes of inactivity (no accounting sessions are arrived from the NAS), the sessions will be treated as closed and users can log on again with the same name.

To prevent such problems You have to establish perfect connection between the NAS and Radius server. Another solution is to wait 10 minutes and the user can logon again.

Why users disappear from the ACP online list after 10 minutes?

You forgot to enable RADIUS accounting in Mikrotik Hotspot / PPP profile and to set AAA interim update to 1-5 minutes. Due to this Radius Manager doesn't receive any RADIUS accounting packets and it thinks the user is offline (stale session) and closes the session.

How many online users can Radius Manager handle with one Mikrotik NAS?

Radius Manager Pro and CTS versions have no limitation in a maximal number of users. In real situations the capacity of NAS can mean be the problem. You can handle up to 600-800 active PPPoE sessions on a 2.4 GHz Intel machine with Mikrotik 2.9+.

How can I enable special characters (like @) in usernames, passwords?

Edit the appropriate regexp string in system_cfg.php and add the special characters You need:

define("regexp_username", '/^[a-z0-9._@]+$/');

When I try access the ACP, it shows: "Table 'radacct' is marked as crashed and should be repaired."

Use phpMyAdmin to repair the corrupted / crashed tables:

1. Download phpMyAdmin from our site
2. Untar it in your webroot folder (on Fedora it is /var/www/html while od Debian it is /var/www)
3. Open phpMyAdmin using a WEB browser: http://yourhost/phpmyadmin
4. Enter the the RADIUS MySQL database user name and password when it is asked
5. Select the RADIUS database in phpMyAdmin
6. Select all tables and select function Repair tables from the dropdown box

Other method is to use the mysqlcheck tool. Issue the following command from your Linux shell to repair the tables:

mysqlcheck -u username -ppassword radius --auto-repair

Where username is your RADIUS user name (it is radius by default) and password is your MySQL RADIUS password.

Never shut down your system uncleanly in order to prevent such errors like this. Always shut down the Linux system with halt or reboot command. It is a good idea to always have a backup of the actual RADIUS database (daily backup).

I'm planning to use PayPal to accept payments online. Is my country supported?

You can accept PayPal payments (Express checkout) with your merchant account registered from any of the supported countries. Consult PayPal.com to determine if You are eligible to register a merchant account or not? To acceptCredit Cards You need a US /UK PayPal merchant account; other countries are not supported for a such operation.

I have noticed my clients are connected to the NAS (PPtP, PPPoE, Hotspot), but if I look under the online users list in Radius Manager they are not listed. Why?

They are listed initially but after 10 minutes (default inactivity timeout) they will be closed if You forgot to turn on the RADIUS accounting in Mikrotik PPP / Hotspot profile and to set the AAA interim update to 1-5 minutes. Setting the correct interim update You ensure the RADIUS accounting data will be sent to RADIUS server in regular intervals and Radius Manager will not close the sessions thinking they are inactive.

My system works slow. When I have installed it, it was very fast. What happened?

Check the logfile /usr/local/var/log/radius/radius.log. If it has grown too big Linux file system write operations are delayed and completely slow down the FreeRadius server.

Solution: Delete the logfile, restart FreeRadius and install a logrotate script.

Another problem can be a slow hard disk and when a database grows, MySQL server can't store the accounting data in db tables fast enough. You can confirm this if You check radius.log and find many unfinished RADIUS requests in it.

Solution: Use fast hard disks. The recommended disks are: SATA, SCSI, RAID arrays.

I see many PHP notices in apache logs and when I try to execute rmscheduler manually. Does this mean a problem?

PHP notices are not errors. Simply ignore them or disable them in php.ini.

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