Administrator Guide

• Forcibly Authorizing or Unauthorizing a Port
• Re-Authenticating a Port
• Configuring Timeouts
• Configuring Dynamic VLAN Assignment with Port Authentication
The Port-Authentication Process
The authentication process begins when the authenticator senses that a link status has changed from down
to up:
1 When the authenticator senses a link state change, it requests that the supplicant identify itself using an
EAP Identity Request frame.
2 The supplicant responds with its identity in an EAP Response Identity frame.
3 The authenticator decapsulates the EAP response from the EAPOL frame, encapsulates it in a RADIUS
Access-Request frame and forwards the frame to the authentication server.
4 The authentication server replies with an Access-Challenge frame. The Access-Challenge frame requests
that the supplicant prove that it is who it claims to be, using a specified method (an EAP-Method). The
challenge is translated and forwarded to the supplicant by the authenticator.
5 The supplicant can negotiate the authentication method, but if it is acceptable, the supplicant provides
the Requested Challenge information in an EAP response, which is translated and forwarded to the
authentication server as another Access-Request frame.
6 If the identity information provided by the supplicant is valid, the authentication server sends an Access-
Accept frame in which network privileges are specified. The authenticator changes the port state to
authorized and forwards an EAP Success frame. If the identity information is invalid, the server sends an
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