Cisco Wireless LAN Security

WLAN State Diagram

Now look at the state diagram of an STA. The state diagram in Figure 4-7 defines the states of STA with respect to a wireless medium in an ESS.

Figure 4-7. STA State Diagram

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The state transitions occur based on the outcome of the WLAN services. The STA/client starts out in an unauthenticated, unassociated state. The first step is to authenticate utilizing the authentication service; the authentication steps needed depend on the authentication requirements of the APs and DS. Perhaps open authentication is sufficient, or perhaps 802.11i authentication is required. A successful authentication transitions ...