Jon Edney and William Arbaugh

This chapter introduces some of the protocols that are central to the new security solutions. One of the most basic functions needed for security is access control and the new security solutions are built around a standard, IEEE 802.1X, which is specifically designed to implement access control. This chapter starts by describing the need for access control and then shows how the control techniques developed for dial-up modem pools have been reused in conjunction with WI-Fi LANs. As we will see, the combination of IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.1X, EAP, and RADIUS provide a solution scalable from home networks all the way to large corporate networks.