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Wireless setting up 802.1x with RADIUS/IAS

Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 10:28 pm
by hotshotjosh
hey guys, noob here!
ok, i'm going to give this a shot. basically i'm an intern to a Network Administrator, and my boss gave me the assignment of "getting the wireless network up and secure". some employees want to bring in their laptops and connect, so my boss wants me to use 802.1x authentication with a RADIUS server so that only employees with a username/password can access the wireless signal. I've gone thru some online walkthru's on setting up 802.1x authentication, but as of now, it still doesn't work.

I'm using a Cisco 1100 series Access Point with a direct connection to the Ethernet wall jack. I've set up an IP address for the AP, and set up an SSID and configured the access point to communicate with a RADIUS server that I have running. btw, I'm using Windows Server 2003 via Virtual Machine, and i have Windows' built-in RADIUS server: Internet Authentication Service (IAS) running.

Have I lost you yet? basically, when I configure the AP to use no encryption, my laptop can pick up the signal and connect/browse the internet and company network fine. when i use WEP encryption on the AP and laptop, the laptop has no problems connecting to the internet and network. when I configure the AP to point to my RADIUS server (which is up and running) the laptop connects to the AP and then asks for a username/password/domain ("Enter Your Credentials"). This is exactly what I want to happen, BUT for some reason, when I enter any username, it won't authenticate. I have added groups and users with permissions to use the wireless, but none of them can connect. I've been at this for about a week, and I'm open to any suggestions that you guys can offer.

Not sure how clear that was, so lemme know if you need any clarification.
Thanks!

ps: i'll be outta town for the next week, so don't expect any replies from me till then!

Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 7:31 am
by Chris Corbyn
Not that you won't get any help in here cos there are some people around here with good all-round experience but if you have an account might I suggest (sorry to do this) trying experts-exchange.

There's some good hardware techies there and because of the way the system works you often get a speedy response. I've used them for hardware/networking questions in the past without disappointment ;)

Not sure I'm technically supposed to have advertised that but http://www.experts-exchange.com/

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:47 am
by hotshotjosh
hey thanks, that's prolly what I needed! I'll go check out Experts Exchange.