Delta DVS-328 series, User Manual

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C h a p t e r 3 F e a t u r e d F u n c t i o n s
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3.11.1.3 802.1X
The Delta switch can act as an authenticator in the 802.1X environment. You can either use an external
authentication server, or implement the authentication server in the Delta switch by using a Local User
Database.
There are three components used to create a port-based authentication mechanism based on 802.1X:
Supplicant: The end of the station that requests the access to the LAN resource and switch services.
Authentication Server: The external server that performs the actual authentication of the supplicant, for
example, a RADIUS server. It performs the authentication to indicate whether the user is authorized to access
services.
Authenticator: It acts as a proxy between the supplicant and the authentication server. This kind of role is
usually the edge switch or the wireless AP. It requests identity information from the supplicant, verifies the
information with the authentication server, and relay a response to the supplicant.
The function theory is shown in the figure below.
802.1X Basic Settings
IEEE 802.1X is an IEEE Standard for port-based Network Access Control (PNAC). It is a part of the IEEE 802.1
group of networking protocols. It provides an authentication mechanism for devices which attempt to connect
with a LAN or WLAN. IEEE 802.1X defines the encapsulation of the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)
over IEEE 802 which is known as "EAP over LAN" or EAPOL.