The IEEE 802.1X standard is designed to govern the authentication of devices attached to LAN ports. The 802.1X protocol defines a port-based authentication algorithm involving network data communication between client-based supplicant software, an authentication database on a server, and the authenticator device. Using 802.1X authentication, you can configure a device to grant access to a port based on information supplied by a client to an authentication server.
When a user logs on to a network that uses 802.1X authentication, the device grants (or does not grant) access to network services after the user is authenticated by an authentication server. The user-based authentication in 802.1X authentication provides an alternative to granting network access based on a user‘s IP address, MAC address, or subnetwork.
The Extreme implementation of 802.1X authentication supports the following RFCs:
Note
SNMP is not supported for 802.1X authentication.