net-auth.md 1.3 KB


title: Network Authentication breadcrumbs:

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General

  • Most types of network authentication, where a client authenticates itself to a switch or a wireless access point, uses IEEE 802.1X (aka dot1x) (excluding approaches like e.g. PSK and MACsec).
  • Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is generally the framework used for dot1x, using Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) as the underlying protocol.
  • Examples of authentication servers include FreeRADIUS and Cisco ISE, which may use internal client identities or use an upstream identity provider like Active Directory (AD).

Usage Examples

  • TODO

Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)

TODO

  • WPA Enterprise w/o provider certificate validation is unsafe? Yes.
  • PEAP encapsulates inner authentication method, e.e. EAP-MSCHAPv2, using e.g. TLS.
  • MS-CHAPv2 is old and uses DES. Inside PEAP is fine.
  • Both PEAP and MS-CHAPv2 provide mutual authentication and don't transmit the password in plaintext.
  • EAP-TLS requires the client device to have both the provider cert and a provider-provided client cert (with private key).
  • PEAPv0 with EAP-MSCHAPv2 without CA cert validation = bad and crackable.

Tips and Best Practices

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