What does EAP stand for – description of EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol)
What does EAP stand for? EAP is Extensible Authentication Protocol. It is based on IEEE 802.1x standard for port-based Network Access Control. There are 3 boxes involved in EAP authentication:1) Wireless client – or Supplicant as they call it in EAP 2) Access Point – or Authenticator as they call it in EAP 3) RADIUS server – or Authentication Server as they call it in EAP The flow of authentication process is following: 1) When there is new client in WLAN network, Access Point (or you could call it wireless router) opens a port for that client. But this port is in unauthenticated state. This means that Access Point allows only EAP traffic to the new client. Client can not go to the Internet and can not use other resources of local network 2) Access Point sends EAP request to the Wireless client, and WLAN client sends him back EAP response. 3) Access Point forwards this EAP request to the RADIUS server. This means that Access Point do not decide shall it allow access for new WLAN client. This decision is made in RADIUS server. RADIUS server has list of users and their credentials. This could be username and password or digital certificate. If these credentials are OK for that particular wireless client, Access Point allows normal traffic for that wireless client. 4) IN this state WLAN client has normal access to the network and internet. Return from What does EAP stand for to Wireless Internet Security
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