Interlogix GE-DSSG-244-POE User Manual User Manual
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IFS NS3601-24P/4S GE-DSSG-244 and 244-POE User Manual
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supplicant, since that would cause all supplicants attached to the port to reply to
requests sent from the switch. Instead, the switch uses the supplicant's MAC
address, which is obtained from the first EAPOL Start or EAPOL Response
Identity frame sent by the supplicant. An exception to this is when no supplicants
are attached. In this case, the switch sends EAPOL Request Identity frames
using the BPDU multicast MAC address as destination - to wake up any
supplicants that might be on the port.
The maximum number of supplicants that can be attached to a port can be
limited using the nality.
MAC-based Auth.
Unlike port-based 802.1X, MAC-based authentication is not a standard, but
merely a best-practices method adopted by the industry. In MAC-based
authentication, users are called clients, and the switch acts as the supplicant on
behalf of clients. The initial frame (any kind of frame) sent by a client is snooped
by the switch, which in turn uses the client's MAC address as both username and
password in the subsequent EAP exchange with the RADIUS server. The 6-byte
MAC address is converted to a string on the following form "xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx",
that is, a dash (-) is used as separator between the lower-cased hexadecimal
digits. The switch only supportsuthentication method, so
the RADIUS server must be configured accordingly.
When authentication is complete, the RADIUS server sends a success or failure
indication, which in turn causes the switch to open up or block traffic for that
particular clientodule. Only then will frames from the
client be forwarded on the switch. There are no EAPOL frames involved in this
authentication, and therefore, MAC-based Authentication has nothing to do with
the 802.1X standard.
The advantage of MAC-based authentication over port-based 802.1X is that
several clients can be connected to the same port (e.g. through a 3rd party
switch or a hub) and still require individual authentication, and that the clients
don't need special supplicant software to authenticate. The advantage of
MAC-based authentication over 802.1X-based authentication is that the clients
don't need special supplicant software to authenticate. The disadvantage is that
MAC addresses can be spoofed by malicious users - equipment whose MAC
address is a valid RADIUS user can be used by anyone. Also, only the
MD5-Challenge method is supported. The maximum number of clients that can
be attached to a port can be limited using thefunctionality.
• RADIUS-Assigned QoS
Enabled
When RADIUS-Assigned QoS is both enabled and enabled (checked)
for a given port, the switch reacts to QoS Class information carried in the
RADIUS Access-Accept packet transmitted by the RADIUS server when a
supplicant is successfully authenticated. If present and valid, traffic received on
the supplicant's port will be classified to the given QoS Class. If
(re-)authentication fails or the RADIUS Access-Accept packet no longer carries a
QoS Class or it's invalid, or the supplicant is otherwise no longer present on the
port, the port's QoS Class is immediately reverted to the original QoS Class
(which may be changed by the administrator in the meanwhile without affecting
the RADIUS-assigned).
This option is only available for single-client modes, i.e.
• Port-based 802.1X
• Single 802.1X
RADIUS attributes used in identifying a QoS Class:
Refer to the written documentation for a description of the RADIUS attributes
needed in order to successfully identify a QoS Class. The User-Priority-Table
attribute defined in orms the basis for identifying the QoS Class in an
Access-Accept packet.
Only the first occurrence of the attribute in the packet will be considered, and to
be valid, it must follow this rule:
All 8 octets in the attribute's value must be identical and consist of ASCII
characters in the range '0' - '3', which translates into the desired QoS Class in the
range [0; 3].