PLANET WGSW-52040 - Manual (Page 364)

Figure 42-9: the Authentication Flow of 802.1x EAP-MD5
2. EAP-TLS Authentication Method
EAP-TLS is brought up by Microsoft based on EAP and TLS protocols. It uses PKI to protect
the id authentication between the supplicant system and the RADIUS server and the
dynamically generated session keys, requiring both the supplicant system and the Radius
authentication server to possess digital certificate to implement bidirectional authentication. It
is the earliest EAP authentication method used in wireless LAN. Since every user should have
a digital certificate, this method is rarely used practically considering the difficult maintenance.
However it is still one of the safest EAP standards, and enjoys prevailing supports from the
vendors of wireless LAN hardware and software.
The following figure illustrates the basic operation flow of the EAP-TLS authentication method.
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