566 Configuring AAA for network users
NN47250-500 (Version 03.01)

Changing the MAC authorization password for RADIUS

When you enable MAC authentication, the client does not supply a regular username or password. The MAC address of
the user’s device is extracted from frames received from the device.
To authenticate and authorize MAC users via RADIUS, you must configure a single predefined password for MAC
users, which is called the outbound authorization password. The same password is used for all MAC user entries in the
RADIUS database. Set this password by typing the following command:
set radius server server-name author-passwor d password
The default password is nortel.
For example, the following command sets the outbound authorization password for MAC users on server bigbird to
h00per:
WSS# set radius server bigbird author-password h00per
success: change accepted.
If the MAC address is in the database, WSS Software uses the VLAN attribute and other attributes associated with it for
user authorization. Otherwise, WSS Software tries the fallthru authentication type, which can be last-resort, Web, or
none.

Configuring Web portal Web-based AAA

Web-based AAA provides a simple and universal way to authenticate any user or device using a web browser. A
common application of Web-based AAA is to control access for guests on your network. When a user requests access to
an SSID or attempts to access a web page before logging onto the network, WSS Software serves a login page to the
user’s browser. After the user enters a username and password, WSS Software checks the local database or RADIUS
servers for the user information, and grants or denies access based on whether the user information is found.
WSS Software redirects an authenticated user back to the requested web page, or to a page specified by the
administrator.
Web-based AAA, like other types of authentication, is based on an SSID or on a wired authentication port.
You can use Web-based AAA on both encrypted and unencrypted SSIDs. If you use Web-based AAA on an encrypted
SSID, you can use static WEP or WPA with PSK as the encryption type.
Note. Before setting the outbound authorization password for a RADIUS server, you
must have set the address for the RADIUS server. For more information, see “Configuring
RADIUS servers” on page 635.
Note. A MAC address must be dash-delimited in the RADIUS databasefor example,
00-00-01-03-04-05. However, the WSS Software always displays colon-delimited MAC
addresses.