Our ISP offers free downloading between 1am and 7 am.

Our subscribers connect to the gateway via l2tp tunnels with RADIUS authentication and accounting via User-Manager, with backup accounting records sent to FreeRADIUS where the real work is done.

In order to give subscribers the benefit of the ISP's free downloads I need a way to 'switch off' RADIUS accounting between 1am and 7am daily.

Any ideas, suggestions, ***solutions*** gratefully received.

In version 4, User Manager has option to specify different limitations depending on time. In your case, you can specify traffic limits during the day and unlimited access during the end.

But, if you are using v3.x right now, you should be very careful when upgrading to v4.x: backup User Manager before switching. Some features are still being implemented in v4.x.

Hello girts, thanks for that.

I don't know User-Manager v4 and as all our several dozen licences don't allow ungrading to v4 I doubt I will for a long time yet.

However I don't think the answer lies with limits. I need to be able to suspend accounting altogether so that all data that passes across the link between certain start and stop times is simply not accounted.

eg. to use the ISP's free download in order to get Vista Service Pack 2 (1.3GB) without racking it up on our internal network accounting I had either to get up at 1.00 am to start it or set myself up with a new l2tp tunnel outside the accounting system when I went to bed and tear it down when I went online the next morning - OK for me but I can't do it for everyone.

I do have a Firefox download manager that allows scheduling, but of course with Microsoft you have to use IE and download managers seem to be barred anyway!