Universal Port is a flexible framework that enables automatic
switch configuration in response to special events such as:
User login and logoff
Device connection to or disconnection from a port
Time of day
EMS event messages
Note
The Universal Port feature is supported only on the
platforms listed for this feature in the license tables in the Switch Engine v33.4.1 Licensing Guide
document.
The primary component of the Universal Port feature is the
profile, which is a special form of command script that runs when triggered by the events
mentioned above.
Profiles execute commands and use variables as do the scripts described in
Using CLI Scripting. The primary
difference is that a profile can be executed manually or automatically in response to switch
events.
Note
The term profile is
distinct from the term policy because a policy is only one
particular application of a profile.
Universal Port works with the following ExtremeXOS components and
third-party products:
Active directory services such as LDAP and Microsoft Active
Directory
The following are some examples of how you can use Universal
Port on a network:
Automatically provision a VoIP phone and the attached switch port with
appropriate PoE budget and QoS settings when the phone connects.
Create security policies that can follow a user as the user roams
around a campus. For example, an engineer can walk from Building 1 to Building 5, plug his
PC into the network and be authenticated with the appropriate access rights and ACLs.
Support separate authentication for VoIP phones and workstations on
the same port.
Create profile templates with variables so that you can re-use
templates with different address ranges and parameters.
Apply different security policies for different locations (for
example, a restricted area).
