IEEE 802.1X and Niagara

In Niagara 4.8 and later, there is added support for IEEE 802.1X wired authentication on the JACE-8000 and Edge platforms. Support for the standard allows the JACE-8000/Edge and Supervisor platforms to join IEEE 802.1X authenticated networks.

The JACE/Edge devices licensed to use the IEEE 802.1X module contain a supplicant, and the means to configure the supplicant to communicate with the authenticator. The following components support the Niagara 4.8 IEEE 802.1X implementation:

The supplicant, wpa_supplicant, negotiates the key with a WiFi Protected Access (WPA) authenticator and controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11 authentication/association of the WLAN driver. wpa_supplicant is designed to be a “daemon” program that runs in the background and acts as the back-end component controlling the wireless connection.
Instances of the configuration file, wpa_supplicant.conf, allow users to configure the wpa_supplicant.

The platIEEE8021X.jar (-rt, -wb) module supports editing the configuration file, wpa_supplicant.conf.

IEEE 802.1X and Niagara

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