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Catalyst 6500 Series Switch Software Configuration Guide—Release 8.7
OL-8978-04
Chapter 40 Configuring 802.1X Authentication
Configuring 802.1X Authentication on the Switch
The AV-pair box appears for every user. Check the box and then type the AV-pair strings in the window.
The strings in this case represent the QoS policy name that you wish to associate with each user. If you
are sending multiple AV-pair strings, you need to separate them with a new line so that each AV-pair is
sent as a different 26/9/1 attribute.
Configuring 802.1X User Distribution
When you configure 802.1X user distribution, you can distribute the users that have the same group name
across multiple VLANs. Before software release 8.3(1), the RADIUS VLAN assignment feature that was
supported by 802.1X took the VLAN number that was obtained from the RADIUS server and added all
the users to that VLAN. With software release 8.3(1) and later releases, you can load balance the
802.1X-authenticated users that are configured under one group name by distributing them evenly
between the VLANs.
Use these two methods to load balance the users between the different VLANs. The VLANs are either
supplied by the RADIUS server or configured under a VLAN group name through the switch CLI:
•
Configure the RADIUS server to send more than one VLAN name for a user. The multiple VLAN
names can be sent as part of the response to the user. The 802.1X user distribution tracks all the users
in a particular VLAN and achieves load balancing by moving the authorized user to the least
populated VLAN.
•
Configure the RADIUS server to send a VLAN group name for a user. The VLAN group name can
be sent as part of the response to the user. The selected VLAN group name is searched among the
VLAN group names that you configured using the Catalyst CLI (see the
“Using the CLI to Configure
802.1X User Distribution” section on page 40-33
). If the VLAN group name is found, the
corresponding VLANs that are configured under this VLAN group name are searched to find the
least populated VLAN and load balancing is achieved by moving the corresponding authorized user
to that VLAN.
802.1X User Distribution Configuration Guidelines
This section provides the guidelines for configuring the 802.1X user distribution feature:
•
Ensure that at least one VLAN is mapped to the VLAN group.
•
You can map more than one VLAN to a VLAN group.
•
You can modify the VLAN group by adding or deleting a VLAN.
•
When you clear an existing VLAN from the VLAN group name, none of the ports that are
authenticated in the VLAN are cleared but the mappings are removed from the existing VLAN
group.
•
If you clear the last VLAN from the VLAN group name, the VLAN group is deleted.
•
You can clear a VLAN group even when the active VLANs are mapped to the group. When you clear
a VLAN group, none of the ports or users that are in the authenticated state in any VLAN within the
group are cleared, but the VLAN mappings to the VLAN group are cleared.
•
If you enter the
set dot1x radius-vlan-assignment disable
command, the VLAN information that
is sent from the RADIUS server is ignored and the port stays in the NVRAM-configured VLAN.
This command is used to enable or disable the VLAN assignment feature globally. When the
command is enabled, the switch uses the tunnel attributes to extract the VLAN name in the RADIUS
Access-Accept message. The command is enabled by default.