Authentication server
C
Fig. 3-53
Authenticator
B
Supplicant A
The Fig. 3-54 shows the procedure of 802.1x authentication. There are steps for the login based on 802.1x port access control management. The protocol used in the right side is EAPOL and the left side is EAP.
1.At the initial stage, the supplicant A is unauthenticated and a port on switch acting as an authenticator is in unauthorized state. So the access is blocked in this stage.
2.Initiating a session. Either authenticator or supplicant can initiate the message exchange. If supplicant initiates the process, it sends EAPOL-start packet to the authenticator PAE and authenticator will immediately respond EAP-Request/Identity packet.
3.The authenticator always periodically sends EAP-Request/Identity to the supplicant for requesting the identity it wants to be authenticated.
4.If the authenticator doesn’t send EAP-Request/Identity, the supplicant will initiate EAPOL-Start the process by sending to the authenticator.
5.And next, the Supplicant replies an EAP-Response/Identity to the authenticator. The authenticator will embed the user ID into Radius- Access-Request command and send it to the authentication server for confirming its identity.
6.After receiving the Radius-Access-Request, the authentication server sends Radius-Access-Challenge to the supplicant for asking for inputting user password via the authenticator PAE.
7.The supplicant will convert user password into the credential information, perhaps, in MD5 format and replies an EAP-Response with this credential information as well as the specified authentication algorithm (MD5 or OTP) to Authentication server via the authenticator PAE. As per the value of the type field in message PDU, the authentication server knows which algorithm should be applied to authenticate the credential information, EAP-MD5 (Message Digest 5) or EAP-OTP (One Time Password) or other else algorithm.
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