Chapter 10. EAP

EAP stands for Extensible Authentication Protocol and is used by 802.1x and WPA2-Enterprise as an authentication framework. 802.1x and WPA2-Enterprise are industry standards used for end-point security. 802.1x uses EAP over the LAN and WPA2-Enterprise uses EAP over the Wi-Fi network.

A basic understanding of EAP includes knowing how the supplicant , authenticator , and backend authentication server interact. This chapter covers all of these but will focus primarily on using FreeRADIUS as the backend authentication server.

In this chapter we shall:

• Learn the basics of EAP
• Explore different EAP methods available in FreeRADIUS
• Discover special considerations when using EAP in production

So let's get on with it...