Axis Communications AXIS 221 user manual Security

AXIS 221 - System Options 35

Security - 802.1x

IEEE 802.1x is an IEEE standard for port-based Network Admission Control. It provides authentication to devices attached to a network port (wired or wireless), establishing a point-to-point connection. If authentication fails, access is prevented on the port. 802.1x is based on EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol).

In a 802.1x enabled network switch, clients equipped with the correct software can be authenticated and allowed or denied network access at the Ethernet level.

Clients and servers in an 802.1x network may need to authenticate each other by some means. In the Axis implementation this is done with the help of digital certificates provided by a Certification Authority. These are then validated by a third-party entity, such as a RADIUS server, examples of which are Free Radius and Microsoft Internet Authentication Service.

To perform the authentication, the RADIUS server uses various EAP methods/protocols, of which there are many. The one used in the Axis implementation is EAP-TLS (EAP-Transport Layer Security).

The AXIS network video device presents its certificate to the network switch, which in turn forwards this to the RADIUS server. The RADIUS server validates or rejects the certificate and responds to the switch, and sends its own certificate to the client for validation. The switch then allows or denies network access accordingly, on a pre-configured port.