DELL PC7024 User Manual

802.1x Commands

Whenever an operator configures a port in Dot1x authentication mode and 

selects the authentication method as internal, then the user credentials 

received from the Dot1x supplicant is validated against the IDAS by Dot1x 

component. The Dot1x application accesses the Dot1x user database to 

check whether the user credentials present in the authentication message 

corresponds to a valid user or not. If so then an event is generated which 

triggers the Dot1x state machine to send a challenge to the supplicant. 

Otherwise a failure is returned to the Dot1x state machine and the user is not 

granted access to the port.
If user(s) credentials are changed, the existing user connection(s) are not 

disturbed and the changed user(s) credentials are only used when a new EAP 

request arises.
A CLI configuration mode is added in order to configure dot1x users and 

their attributes. The Dot1x maintained user database can be exported 

(uploaded) or imported (downloaded) to/from a central location using a 

TFTP server. 

Today, 802.1x has become the recommended port-based authentication 

method at the access layer in enterprise networks. However, there may be 

802.1x unaware devices such as printers, fax-machines etc that would require 

access to the network without 802.1x authentication. MAC Authentication 

Bypass (MAB) is a supplemental authentication mechanism to allow 802.1x 

unaware clients to authenticate to the network. It uses the 802,1x 

infrastructure and MAB cannot be supported independent of the Dot1x 

component.
MAC Authentication Bypass (MAB) provides 802.1x unaware clients 

controlled access to the network using the devices’ MAC address as an 

identifier. This requires that the known and allowable MAC address and 

corresponding access rights be pre-populated in the authentication server.  

MAB only works when the port control mode of the port is MAC-based. 
Port access by MAB clients is allowed if the Dot1x user database has 

corresponding entries added for the MAB clients with user name and 

password attributes set to the MAC address of MAB clients.

2CSPC4.XCT-SWUM2XX1.book  Page 816  Monday, October 3, 2011  11:05 AM