Functions; Security; Ieee 802.1X; Radius - WAGO 852-1328 Product Manual

Functions

Functions 5

5.1 Security

5.1.1 IEEE 802.1X

IEEE 802.1X is an IEEE standard for port-based Network-Access Control protocol. It pro-
vides an authentication mechanism to devices that need to attach to a LAN. This protocol
restricts unauthorized clients from connecting to a LAN through ports that are opened to
the Internet. The authentication generally involves three parties (see Figure "RADIUS Au-
thentication Sequence" in Section
and an authentication server.
• Supplicant: A client device that requests access to the LAN
• Authentication Server: This server performs the actual authentication. We utilize RA-
DIUS („Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service" as the authentication server.
• Authenticator: The Authenticator is a network device (i.e. the WAGO Industrial man-
aged switch) that acts as a proxy between the supplicant and the authentication server.
It passes around information, verifies information with the server, and relays responses
to the supplicant.
The authenticator acts like a security guard to a protected network. The supplicant is not
allowed accessing to the protected side of the network through the authenticator until the
supplicant's identity has been validated and authorized. With IEEE802.1X authentication,
a supplicant and an authenticator exchange EAP („Extensible Authentication Protocol",
an authentication framework widely used by IEEE) aus. Then the authenticator forwards
this information to the authentication server for verification. If the authentication server
confirms the request, the supplicant (client device) will be allowed to access resources lo-
cated on the protected side of the network.

5.1.2 RADIUS

The RADIUS is a networking protocol that provides authentication, authorization and ac-
counting (AAA) management for devices to connect and use a network services. Figure
"RADIUS Authentication Sequence" shows a diagram of RADIUS authentication se-
quence.
22 Product manual | Version: 1.2.0
Industrial Managed Switch
8 RADIUS [} 22]): a supplicant, an authenticator,
Figure 9: RADIUS Authentication Sequence
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