Users Guide

802.1X

802.1X is a method of port security.

A device connected to a port that is enabled with 802.1X is disallowed from sending or receiving packets on the network until its identity

can be veried (through a username and password, for example). This feature is named for its IEEE specication.

802.1X employs extensible authentication protocol (EAP) to transfer a device’s credentials to an authentication server (typically RADIUS)

using a mandatory intermediary network access device, in this case, a Dell Networking switch. The network access device mediates all

communication between the end-user device and the authentication server so that the network remains secure. The network access

device uses EAP-over-Ethernet (EAPOL) to communicate with the end-user device and EAP-over-RADIUS to communicate with the

server.

NOTE: The Dell Networking operating system supports 802.1X with EAP-MD5, EAP-OTP, EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS, PEAPv0,

PEAPv1, and MS-CHAPv2 with PEAP.

The following gures show how the EAP frames are encapsulated in Ethernet and RADIUS frames.

92 802.1X