User guide

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Summit WM20 User Guide, Software Release 4.2 235
Summit WM Controller, Access Points and Software
Terms and Abbreviations
WPA Wireless Protected Access, or Wi-Fi Protected Access is a security
solution adopted by the Wi-Fi Alliance that adds authentication to
WEPs’ basic encryption. For authentication, WPA specifies IEEE 802.1x
authentication with Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). For
encryption, WPA uses the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP)
mechanism, which shares a starting key between devices, and then
changes their encryption key for every packet. Certificate
Authentication (CA) can also be used. Also part of the encryption
mechanism are 802.1X for dynamic key distribution and Message
Integrity Check (MIC) a.k.a. Michael.
WPA requires that all computers and devices have WPA software.
WPA-PSK Wi-Fi Protected Access with Pre-Shared Key, a special mode of WPA
for users without an enterprise authentication server. Instead, for
authentication, a Pre-Shared Key is used. The PSK is a shared secret
(passphrase) that must be entered in both the Wireless AP or router
and the WPA clients.
This preshared key should be a random sequence of characters at least
20 characters long or hexadecimal digits (numbers 0-9 and letters A-F)
at least 24 hexadecimal digits long. After the initial shared secret, the
Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) handles the encryption and
automatic rekeying.
Term Explanation
CTP CAPWAP Tunnelling Protocol (CTP). The Wireless AP uses a UDP
(User Datagram Protocol) based tunnelling protocol called CAPWAP
Tunnelling Protocol (CTP) to encapsulate the 802.11 packets and
forward them to the Summit WM Controller.
The CTP protocol defines a mechanism for the control and
provisioning of Wireless APs (CAPWAP) through centralized access
controllers. In addition, it provides a mechanism providing the option
to tunnel the mobile client data between the access point and the
access controller.
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