Cisco Wireless LAN Security

802.1x: Introduction and General Principles

As you have seen, the EAP and other methods are primarily developed for dial-up connections; therefore, there are no link layer protocols for them in the 802 LAN worlds. You cannot arbitrarily open up a TCP port and start sending EAP data. That is where 802.1x comes in. It provides a set of context (such as port and supplicant), state machines between the various layers, and the EAP over LAN (EAPOL) protocol. Of course, 802.1x is not specific to WLANS; in fact, the standard is being used in wired networks successfully. 802.1x provides the access models, whereas EAP adds the authentication mechanisms.

Note

The 802.1x specification is clear about what 802.1x does and does not do. It provides a framework ...