PLANET WGSW-50040 - Manual (Page 202)

25-8
Figure 25-9 the Authentication Flow of 802.1x EAP-MD5
2. EAP-TLS Authentication Method
EAP-TLS is brought up by Microsoft based on EAP and TLS protocols. It uses PKI to protect the id
authentication between the supplicant system and the RADIUS server and the dynamically generated session
keys, requiring both the supplicant system and the Radius authentication server to possess digital certificate
to implement bidirectional authentication. It is the earliest EAP authentication method used in wireless LAN.
Since every user should have a digital certificate, this method is rarely used practically considering the difficult
maintenance. However it is still one of the safest EAP standards, and enjoys prevailing supports from the
vendors of wireless LAN hardware and software.
The following figure illustrates the basic operation flow of the EAP-TLS authentication method.