[ILUG] IOL Broadband handing over information.

[Paul Jakma]

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Cian Cullinan wrote:

> I was under the impression that WPA used 802.1x for authentication. 
> That's about all I know though, is there a more full blown solution 
> using it?

WPA is a sort of stop-gap, a cut-down 'draft' version of the basic 
authentication messages of 802.1x - AIUI. (The actual authentication 
crypto stuff being defined elsewhere, IIRC, TKIP?? or somesuch.).

802.1x proper goes further and defines various roles and how they can 
interact. Including ways to have entities controlling ports 'switch 
off' a port until authentication succeeds, and ways to allow the 
actual authentication process to be proxied and centralised (via 
encapsulated EAP messages).

A version of 802.1x standard is available on the IEEE site somewhere 
and has a reasonably useful overview of the intended capabilities.

 	http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.1X-2001.pdf

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
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