ZyXEL Communications MES-2110, User Manual

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MES-2110 User’s Guide
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C
H A P T E R
9
802.1x
9.1 Overview
This chapter describes the IEEE 802.1x authentication method.
Port authentication is a way to validate access to ports on the Switch to clients
based on an external server (authentication server). The Switch supports the
following method for port authentication:
• IEEE 802.1x
1
- An authentication server validates access to a port based on a
username and password provided by the user.
IEEE 802.1x authentication uses the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User
Service, RFC 2138, 2139) protocol to validate users. See
Section 9.6 on page 71
for more information on configuring your RADIUS server settings.
9.1.1 IEEE 802.1x Authentication
The following figure illustrates how a client connecting to a IEEE 802.1x
authentication enabled port goes through a validation process. The Switch
prompts the client for login information in the form of a user name and password.
When the client provides the login credentials, the Switch sends an authentication
1. At the time of writing, IEEE 802.1x is not supported by all operating systems. See your operating system
documentation. If your operating system does not support 802.1x, then you may need to install 802.1x client
software.