RadiatorDB

RadiatorDB is a built-in multimaster database solution for Radiator 10 network authentication RADIUS and TACACS+ server products Radiator Policy Server and Radiator Core.

See details about architecture, key technical details and example use cases below.

Architecture

RadiatorDB is a document database, similar to MongoDB, but built on top of PostgreSQL. RadiatorDB stores collections of free-form JSON documents, allowing customers to create their own data structure for users, network clients, accounting data and any other data used or created by Radiator instances.

Each document is keyed with a multi-value key that must be unique within its collection. Database operations to can be made based on the full key, part of the key or using the JSON data itself.

While the underlying SQL schema is fixed, Radiator UI does not force any format on the documents. Users can create their own structure in the Radiator UI using the radconf syntax. Database operations (adding, modifying and deleting data) can be made either via Radiator UI or via REST API.

Technical information

Multi-master support

Configure multiple PostgreSQL instances to get multimaster replication support
Write to any single instance and changes replicate automatically to all other instances
Multimaster write conflicts are handled using a simple last-writer-wins strategy
Use for high availability or horizontal read scaling

JSON REST API for database access with role-based access control

Database UI

Define database UIs for create, read, update, and delete operations
Choose UI widgets (text, password, number etc.) for each field
Role-based access control

Revision history and audit log

Each database insert, update, or delete generates a revision history entry with information about who made the change
Use the built-in UI to view the revision history and restore items as needed

Automatically expiring documents

Useful for session stores that should clear automatically

Automatic SQL schema management

RadiatorDB only needs write access to a PostgreSQL database
Radiator automatically sets up the required SQL tables and replication configurations

RadiatorDB UI

RadiatorDB Collections overview

In RadiatorDB, you can define the data structure that best suits you, with the Radiator configuration.

RadiatorDB configuration

In RadiatorDB, you can define the data structure that best suits you, with the Radiator configuration.

Create users in RadiatorDB

RadiatorDB offers manual provisioning capabilities for creating users and clients.

RadiatorDB CoA

RadiatorDB allows defining custom actions that the server performs on button press from RadiatorDB admin. Here is an example of disconnecting user with CoA request.

Popular use cases

Fixed broadband authentication

Fixed broadband authentication has been a bread-and-butter use case for Radiator’s RADIUS servers for decades. With the release of RadiatorDB, customers now gain the option of utilising a built-in database solution that is replicated for high-availability and optimised for AAA deployments.

With RadiatorDB, the provisioning of subscribers and clients can be done both automatically from CRM or similar system via REST API, or manually from the Radiator UI.

In a fixed-line authentication deployment powered by Radiator Core and RadiatorDB, operations teams can manage connected users and trigger Change of Authorisation calls for selected users from the Radiator UI.