Provisioning Glossary

An understanding of the following entities is essential to use Provisioning with BillMax.

Hook
An executable that is run when a specific table is updated. BillMax sets the environment and will run the executable immediately or create an entry in the asyncprov table for asynchronous execution.
Network Access Server
A RADIUS client device that consults a RADIUS server to determine whether or not a connection to a service should be granted an under what conditions. The case of an internet service, the NAS may consult the RADIUS server to determine if the customer should be allowed to use the network and if so, under what conditions. An example of a condition is to what speed is a customer entitled. BillMax uses RADIUS reply groups defined in the RADIUS server to communicate the conditions to the NAS.
Product/Service Definition
See Package Definition, Service Definition
Provisioning Variables
Specified in the Product Definition that is used to provision a Service of that type. While all variables in a Service can be used in provisioning, these variables are typically limited to the fields: d01, d02, d03 … d10.
RADIUS
Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) refers to protocols, standards, clients and servers used to provide central Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) services for computer networks. Authentication verifies a user’s identify whereas Authorization determine what rights, actions or service are allowed for a user. In order to utilize RADIUS, devices in a network must support RADIUS (i.e. include a RADIUS client). This is most often done in customer premise equipment (CPE) or in the case of wireless Internet, at the Access Point (AP). See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RADIUS for more details.
RADIUS Attribute
RADIUS attributes are informational items used to define specific authentication, authorization, and accounting elements stored on a RADIUS server.
RADIUS Reply Groups
Groups of reply attributes with the primary use to specify settings that tell the NAS what speeds or bandwidth the user is entitled to. Groups may be thought of as Plans. To sell different levels of internet access, multiple groups or plans are created in RADIUS server, then the appropriate product definition in BillMax is configured to use that RADIUS plan.
Resources
Settings in the Product Definition and Service used to identify which systems are provisioned by BillMax. Resources are also used in name spaces to ensure uniqueness of Service names. The Resources are managed a bit-wise integer field where every bit specifies a potential system to be provisioned or name space to be checked. Resources is an example of a field whose value is copied to the Service from the Service Definition when the Service is created. See also Resources
Service Hook
The general name for the executable used for provisioning Services. Its actual path is /usr/local/billmax/local/service_hook
SERVICES Hash
This is a data structure used in /usr/local/billmax/local/service_hook. It is used to specify systems, data, and actions to provision. Typically, it is the only code that needs to customized in /usr/local/billmax/local/service_hook.