Reference Guide

802.1X | 107

802.1X

802.1X is supported on platforms: c e s

This chapter has the following sections:

• Protocol Overview

• Configuring 802.1X

• Important Points to Remember

• Enabling 802.1X

• Configuring Request Identity Re-transmissions

• Forcibly Authorizing or Unauthorizing a Port

• Re-Authenticating a Port

• Configuring Timeouts

• Dynamic VLAN Assignment with Port Authentication

• Guest and Authentication-Fail VLANs

• Multi-Host Authentication

• Multi-Supplicant Authentication

• MAC Authentication Bypass

• Dynamic CoS with 802.1X

Protocol Overview

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 traffic on the network until its identity can be verified (through a username and

password, for example); all ingress frames, except those used for 802.1X authentication, are dropped. This

feature is named for its IEEE specification.

802.1X employs Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)* to transfer a device’s credentials to an

authentication server (typically RADIUS) via a mandatory intermediary network access device, in this

case, a Dell Force10 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.