Sessions and logs

When a customer calls to say “my internet is down”, the PPPoE logs usually tell you why within a minute. ISPMan keeps three kinds of record:

• Sessions: who is connected right now.
• Authentication (access) logs: every login attempt, accepted or rejected, with the reason.
• Accounting logs: each session’s start, stop, IP and data used.

Where to find them

Page	Path	What it shows
PPPoE → Sessions	/dashboard/pppoe/sessions	Active PPPoE Sessions: Customer, Username, IP Address, MAC Address, Started, Last Update, Uploaded, Downloaded. Only sessions that haven’t stopped and were updated in the last 30 minutes are listed.
PPPoE → Auth Logs	/dashboard/pppoe/auth-logs	Every login attempt: Customer, Username, MAC Address, Time, Reply (accepted or rejected) and Reason.
PPPoE → Acct Logs	/dashboard/pppoe/acct-logs	Session records: Customer, Username, IP Address, Started, Stopped, Last Update, Uploaded, Downloaded and Terminate Cause.
Services → PPPoEs → Recent Logs	/dashboard/pppoes/recent_logs	Recent PPPoE Access Logs for the last 7 days, with the customer’s account and a plain-language Details column.
Services → PPPoEs → Recent Accounting	/dashboard/pppoes/recent_accounting	Recent PPPoE Session Logs.

Every column with a filter box can be searched, so you can type a username or MAC address to narrow the list.

From a customer’s page, Access Logs (top of the Actions card) opens Recent Logs already filtered to that customer.

Reading the access logs

What you see	Likely cause	What to do
Rejected with a reason	The reason says why, for example an expired account or a MAC binding mismatch.	Act on the reason: take payment, or update MAC Binding.
Rejected, “Expired or Wrong credentials”	The account has expired, or the password on the customer’s router is wrong.	Check Paid Until. If paid, compare the password with See Credentials.
“No such customer”	The username on the router doesn’t match any customer.	Check the spelling on the customer’s router, or the username in ISPMan.
Accepted, then rejected over and over	Often a second router using the same login.	Check Max Conn. and the customer’s devices.

Tip

The Recent Logs page notes: when you see “Connected” and still red, the client has the wrong password or their account doesn’t exist.

On the customer page

A customer’s page brings the same information together for one person:

• Current session: start time, last update, duration, data downloaded, IP address and whether they have hit a data limit or are at full speed. If they have more than one session, Other Active Sessions lists them, and you can Disconnect a session.
• Last authentication: shown next to the session. If it failed you’ll see “This PPPoE account failed to authenticate” with recent attempts. A session that is up while another device keeps failing is easy to spot here.
• Session History: past sessions and usage.
• Last Seen under Device Details.

Fixing a stuck connection

1. Open the customer page and check Paid Until and the last authentication.
2. If the account is paid and the customer still can’t browse, click Reset Conn. This ends their sessions on every router so they log in fresh. Their account is not changed.
3. If they have changed routers and MAC binding is on, open MAC Binding and clear the detected router MAC, or add the new MAC.
4. Still failing? Check the router itself in Devices.

For many customers at once (for example after a router reboot), use Reset connection in Bulk actions.

Related

• Customers
• Router setup
• Troubleshooting