PLANET WGSW-52040 - Manual (Page 357)

Figure 42-1: The Authentication Structure of 802.1x
 The supplicant system is an entity on one end of the LAN segment, should be
authenticated by the access controlling unit on the other end of the link. A Supplicant
system usually is a user terminal device. Users start 802.1x authentication by starting
supplicant system software. A supplicant system should support EAPOL (Extensible
Authentication Protocol over LAN).
 The authenticator system is another entity on one end of the LAN segment to
authenticate the supplicant systems connected. An authenticator system usually is a
network device supporting 802,1x protocol, providing ports to access the LAN for
supplicant systems. The ports provided can either be physical or logical.
 The authentication server system is an entity to provide authentication service for
authenticator systems. The authentication server system is used to authenticate and
authorize users, as well as does fee-counting, and usually is a RADIUS (Remote
Authentication Dial-In User Service) server, which can store the relative user information,
including username, password and other parameters such as the VLAN and ports which
the user belongs to.
The three entities above concerns the following basic concepts: PAE of the port, the controlled
ports and the controlled direction.
1. PAE
PAE (Port Access Entity) is the entity to implement the operation of algorithms and protocols.
 The PAE of the supplicant system is supposed to respond the authentication request
from the authenticator systems and submit user’s authentication information to the
authenticator system. It can also send authentication request and off-line request to
authenticator.
 The PAE of the authenticator system authenticates the supplicant systems needing to
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