Technical Reference - ZyXEL Communications 5 Series User Manual

Chapter 12 Wireless Screens

12.4 Technical Reference

IRADIUS
RADIUS user is a simple package exchange in which your ZyWALL acts as a message relay
between the wireless station and the network RADIUS server. See RFC 2138 and RFC 2139
for more on RADIUS.
Types of RADIUS Messages
The following types of RADIUS messages are exchanged between the access point and the
RADIUS server for user authentication:
• Access-Request
Sent by an access point requesting authentication.
• Access-Reject
Sent by a RADIUS server rejecting access.
• Access-Accept
Sent by a RADIUS server allowing access.
• Access-Challenge
Sent by a RADIUS server requesting more information in order to allow access. The
access point sends a proper response from the user and then sends another Access-Request
message.
The following types of RADIUS messages are exchanged between the access point and the
RADIUS server for user accounting:
• Accounting-Request
Sent by the access point requesting accounting.
• Accounting-Response
Sent by the RADIUS server to indicate that it has started or stopped accounting.
In order to ensure network security, the access point and the RADIUS server use a shared
secret key, which is a password, they both know. The key is not sent over the network. In
addition to the shared key, password information exchanged is also encrypted to protect the
network from unauthorized access.
EAP Authentication
The following figure shows an overview of authentication when you specify a RADIUS server
on your access point.
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ZyWALL 5/35/70 Series User's Guide