Appendix 4 Glossary - Tenda F456 User Manual

Wireless N450 Home Router
Appendix 4 Glossary
Channel
A communication channel, also known as channel, refers either to a physical transmission medium such as a
wire or to a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as a radio channel. It is used to transfer an
information signal, such as a digital bit stream, from one or more transmitters to one or more receivers. If
there is only one AP in the range, select any channel you like. The default is Auto.
If there are several APs coexisting in the same area, it is advisable that you select a different channel for
each AP to operate on, minimizing the interference between neighboring APs. For example, if 3 American‐
standard APs coexist in one area, you can set their channels respectively to 1, 6 and 11 to avoid mutual
interference.
SSID
Service set identifier (SSID) is used to identify a particular 802.11 wireless LAN. It is the name of a specific
wireless network. To let your wireless network adapter roam among different APs, you must set all APs'
SSID to the same name.
WPA/WPA2
The WPA protocol implements the majority of the IEEE 802.11i standard. It enhances data encryption
through the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) which is a 128‐bit per‐packet key, meaning that it
dynamically generates a new key for each packet. WPA also includes a message integrity check feature to
prevent data packets from being hampered with. Only authorized network users can access the wireless
network. The later WPA2 protocol features compliance with the full IEEE 802.11i standard and uses
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in addition to TKIP encryption protocol to guarantee better security
than that provided by WEP or WPA. Currently, WPA is supported by Windows XP SP1.
IEEE 802.1X Authentication
IEEE 802.1X Authentication is an IEEE Standard for port‐based Network Access Control (PNAC). It is part of
the IEEE 802.1 group of networking protocols. It provides an authentication mechanism to devices wishing
to attach to a LAN or WLAN.IEEE 802.1X defines the encapsulation of EAP over LAN or EAPOL. 802.1X
authentication involves three parties: a supplicant, an authenticator, and an authentication server. The
supplicant is a client device (such as a laptop) that wishes to attach to the LAN/WLAN ‐ though the term
'supplicant' is also used interchangeably to refer to the software running on the client that provides
credentials to the authenticator. The authenticator is a network device, such as an Ethernet switch or
wireless access point; and the authentication server is typically a host running software supporting the
RADIUS and EAP protocols. The authenticator acts like a security guard to a protected network. The
supplicant (i.e. client device) is not allowed access through the authenticator to the protected side of the
network until the supplicant's identity has been validated and authorized. With 802.1X port‐based
authentication, the supplicant provides credentials, such as user name / password or digital certificate, to
the authenticator, and the authenticator forwards the credentials to the authentication server for
verification. If the authentication server determines the credentials are valid, the supplicant (client device)
is allowed to access resources located on the protected side of the network.
PPPOE
The Point‐to‐Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating PPP frames inside
Ethernet frames. Integrated PPP protocol implements authentication, encryption, and compression
functions that traditional Ethernet cannot provide and can also be used in the cable modem and digital
subscriber line (DSL) and Ethernet that provide access service to the users. Essentially, it is a protocol that
allows to establish a point‐to‐point tunnel between two Ethernet interfaces within an Ethernet broadcast
domain.
71