HP Manager Software manual Configuring WPA or RSN, WPA and RSN Authentication Methods

242CHAPTER 6: CONFIGURING WIRELESS PARAMETERS

Configuring WPA or RSN

WPA is a security enhancement to the IEEE 802.11 wireless standard. WPA provides enhanced encryption with new cipher suites and provides per-packet message integrity checks. WPA is based on Draft 3 of the 802.11i standard. You can use WPA with 802.1X authentication. If the client does not support 802.1X, you can use a preshared key on the MAP and the client for authentication.

Robust Security Network (RSN) provides WPA2 support. WPA2 is based on the final IEEE 802.11i amendment to the 802.11 standard.

WPA uses RC4 encryption (TKIP) and WPA2 generally uses AES encryption.

WPA and RSN Authentication Methods

You can configure MAP access points to support one or both of the following authentication methods for WPA clients:

„802.1X — The MAP and client use an Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) method to authenticate one another, then use the resulting key in a handshake to derive a unique key for the session. 802.1X authentication requires user information to be configured on AAA servers or in the WX switch’s local database. This is the default authentication method for WPA and RSN.

„Preshared key (PSK) — a MAP and a client authenticate one another based on a key that is statically configured on both devices. The devices use the key in a handshake to derive a unique key for the session. For a given radio profile, you can globally configure a PSK for use with all clients. You can configure the key by entering an ASCII passphrase or by entering the key itself in raw (hexadecimal) form.

WPA and RSN Cipher Suites

WPA and RSN support the following cipher suites for packet encryption, listed from most secure to least secure:

„Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol (CCMP) — CCMP provides Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) data encryption. To provide message integrity, CCMP uses the Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code (CBC-MAC).