ZyXEL Communications Vantage RADIUS 50 User Manual page 69

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The RADIUS server checks the user information against its user profile database and determines
whether or not to authenticate the wireless station.
MD5 authentication does not use certificates for authentication. If your wireless
clients are not going to use other protocols for authentication, you do not need to
The Vantage RADIUS can use certificates (also called digital IDs) to authenticate users. Certificates are
based on public-private key pairs. A certificate contains the certificate owner's identity and public key.
Certificates provide a way to exchange public keys for use in authentication.
A Certification Authority (CA) issues certificates and guarantees the identity of each certificate owner.
There are commercial certification authorities like CyberTrust or VeriSign and government certification
authorities.
In public-key encryption and decryption, each host has two keys. One key is public and can be made openly
available; the other key is private and must be kept secure. Public-key encryption in general works as
follows.
1. Tim wants to send a private message to Jenny. Tim generates a public key pair. What is encrypted
with one key can only be decrypted using the other.
2. Tim keeps the private key and makes the public key openly available.
3. Tim uses his private key to encrypt the message and sends it to Jenny.
4. Jenny receives the message and uses Tim's public key to decrypt it.
5. Additionally, Jenny uses her own private key to encrypt a message and Tim uses Jenny's public
key to decrypt the message.
You can set your Vantage RADIUS to generate a trusted Root CA (self-signed certificates), which is a
special kind of certificate that does not require a CA to guarantee identification. The trust part is based on
knowledge of the certificates origin. For example, you trust a certificate is from a valid source because you
know the issuer or you trust the service that you are subscribing to.
RADIUS Configuration
configure any certificates.
Vantage RADIUS User's Guide
5-3