AirWorks AWK-3121 User’s Manual
Web Console Configuration
3-19
Before choosing the EAP protocol for your WPA/WPA2-Enterpise settings on the client end,
please contact the network administrator to make sure the system supports the protocol on the AP
end. Detailed information on these three popular EAP protocols is presented in the following
sections:
EAP-TLS
TLS is the standards-based successor to the Secure Socket Layer (SSL). It can establish a trusted
communication channel over a distrusted network. TLS provides mutual authentication through
certificate exchange. EAP-TLS is also secure to use. You are required to submit a digital certificate
to the authentication server for validation, but the authentication server must also supply a
certificate.
You can use
Basic Wireless Settings
Æ
WLAN Certificate Settings
to import your WLAN
certificate and enable EAP-TLS on the client end.
You can check the current certificate status in
Current Status
if it is available.
Certificate issued to
: shows the certificate user
Certificate issued by
: shows the certificate issuer
Certificate expiration date
: indicates when the certificate has expired
EAP-TTLS
It is usually much easier to re-use existing authentication systems, such as a Windows domain or
Active Directory, LDAP directory, or Kerberos realm, rather than creating a parallel authentication
system. As a result, TTLS (Tunneled TLS) and PEAP (Protected EAP) are used to support the use
of so-called “legacy authentication methods.”
TTLS and PEAP work in a similar way. First, they establish a TLS tunnel, like EAP-TLS, and
validate whether the network is trustworthy with digital certificates on the authentication server.
This step is run to establish a tunnel that protects the next step (or “inner” authentication) so it is
sometimes referred to as the “outer” authentication. Then the TLS tunnel is used to encrypt an
older authentication protocol that authenticates the user for the network.
As you can see, digital certificates are still needed for the outer authentication in a simplified form.
Only a small number of certificates are required, which can be generated by a small certificate
authority. Certificate reduction makes TTLS and PEAP much more popular than EAP-TLS.
The AWK-3121 provides some non-cryptographic EAP methods including
PAP
,
CHAP
,
MS-CHAP
, and
MS-CHAP-V2
. These EAP methods are not recommended for direct use on
wireless networks. However, they may be useful as inner authentication methods with TTLS or
PEAP.
