42-2
Catalyst 6500 Series Switch Software Configuration Guide—Release 8.7
OL-8978-04
Chapter 42 Configuring Web-Based Proxy Authentication
Understanding How Web-Based Proxy Authentication Works
This chapter consists of these sections:
•
Understanding How Web-Based Proxy Authentication Works, page 42-2
•
Interaction with Other Features, page 42-7
•
Default Web-Based Proxy Authentication Configuration, page 42-8
•
Web-Based Authentication Guidelines and Restrictions, page 42-8
•
Configuring Web-Based Proxy Authentication, page 42-9
Understanding How Web-Based Proxy Authentication Works
The Catalyst 6500 series switch provides web-based proxy authentication in cases where the network
client does not have IEEE 802.1X host support. Web-based proxy authentication is authentication
through a standard web-based interface (HTTP/HTTPS) of the front-end systems for client identity and
credential input.
With 802.1X port-based authentication, a
supplicant
is required to provide access to the LAN and switch
services and respond to requests from the switch.
Note
802.1X uses the term
supplicant
for
client
or
host
. In this publication, we use
host
instead of
supplicant
because
host
is used in the Catalyst 6500 series CLI syntax.
Web-based proxy authentication supports full 802.1X authentication and provides support for
nonhost-capable clients.
See the “Configuring 802.1X Authentication” chapter for 802.1X authentication information.
These sections describe how web-based proxy authentication works:
•
Device Roles, page 42-2
•
Authentication Initiation and Message Exchange, page 42-3
Device Roles
Web-based proxy authentication provides authentication through a standard web-based interface as shown
in
Figure 42-1
.
Figure 42-1
Device-integrated Web-Based Proxy Authentication
Host
(supplicant)
HTTP.HTTPS
RADIUS
HTTP
Catalyst switch
(NAD)
Authentication server
(RADIUS)
External Server Host
Login HTML page
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