HP Access Control Client Software manual Peer-to-peer, Permanent agent, PoE

Appendix A: Glossary

PAP	Password Authentication Protocol. A protocol used to authenticate a client
	to a remote server or an Internet service provider. PAP transmits usernames
	and passwords in unencrypted plaintext, making it insecure. For more infor-
	mation, see RFC 1334 at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1334.txt.
PCM	ProCurve Manager. ProCurve’s SNMP solution.
PDA	Personal Digital Assistant. A hand-held computing device that can run
	applications or store data. Some PDAs have radio or infrared transmission
	capabilities.
PDP	Policy Decision Point. An authentication server, often a RADIUS server or NAC,
	that accepts authorization requests, and based on the policies that it contains,
	returns a verdict: access denied or permitted, and under what conditions.
PEAP	Protected EAP. A transport mechanism developed to provide much of the
	security of EAP-TLSwithout forcing endpoints to use digital certificates, thereby
	drastically cutting the work to implement the protocol. PEAP requires only a
	server-side PKI certificate to create a secure TLS tunnel to protect end-user
	authentication.
peer-to-peer	See P2P.
PEP	Policy Enforcement Point. A network component, usually a NAS, that
	enforces the policy that was chosen by the PDP. The PEP performs the task of
	either dropping the signal from an unauthorized endpoint or permitting the
	endpoint to connect to the network.
permanent agent	An agent that is installed on an endpoint and not removed. The NAC EI agent is
	a permanent agent. See also transient agent.
PKI	Public Key Infrastructure. A system of digital certificates, CAs, and other
	registration authorities that verify and authenticate each party in an Internet
	transaction. PKI enables devices to privately exchange data using a public
	infrastructure such as the Internet by managing keys and certificates. From a
	trusted CA, an end-user obtains a certificate, which includes the user’s iden-
	tification information, a public key, and the CA’s signature. The end-user also
	obtains the corresponding private key. The user authenticates with the certif-
	icate. In addition, devices can encrypt messages destined to the user with the
	user’s public key, which the user’s endpoint then decrypts with the private key.
PoE	Power over Ethernet. Technology that permits the transmission of electrical
	energy over Ethernet cabling to provide power to a component on the end of
	the cable, typically an AP or RP.

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