Network Security Principles and Practices

Port Authentication and Access Control Using the IEEE 802.1x Standard

802.1x is the standard developed by IEEE to provide a mechanism for authentication to occur for devices that connect to various Layer 2 devices such as switches using IEEE 802 LAN infrastructures (such as Token Ring and Ethernet).

The primary idea behind the standard is devices that need to access the LAN need to be authenticated and authorized before they can connect to the physical or logical port of the switch that is responsible for creating the LAN environment. In the case of Ethernet and Token Ring, the ports are physical entities that a device plugs into. However, in the case of setups such as the IEEE 802.11b wireless setup, the ports are logical entities known as ...