Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 21:06:34 -0700 From: Dave Tweten <tweten@nas.nasa.gov> To: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Lucent AS-2000 Wireless / Authentication Message-ID: <200104140406.f3E46Z779128@gilmore.nas.nasa.gov>
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Wireless LANs are new to me. We are considering buying Lucent ORiNOCO(tm) AS-2000s and Lucent "Gold" wireless PCCARDs. Authentication is to be done through a Radius server. They claim support for Windows machines and Macs. Ho hum. I'm trying to figure out how this might work with FreeBSD. The AS-2000 documentation I can get my hands on indicates that PPP has something to do with this, which is good, because CHAP seems to be a reasonably replay-proof authentication protocol. If I understand the Lucent Radius documentation, CHAP can also be administered from one point on the land-line side, regardless of the number of AP-2000s we may buy. I care about secure authentication, but I really don't care about eavesdropping because we use SSH for all machine access. I'm also gratified to see that FreeBSD has the wi driver, which seems to be intended for these PCCARDs. That's the good news. Now, the bad news and my confusion. Bad news: Our Lucent sales techie believes that there is something proprietary about Lucent's authentication scheme, but I have no indication of exactly what might be proprietary. Certainly, CHAP is anything but proprietary. Confusion: I'm also a little surprised to think that they would use PPP as an IP encapsulation protocol over the radio link. If that's true, it looks like the FreeBSD problem may be as simple as pointing a PPP package (user or kernel space) at /dev/wi0 instead of some tty port and configuring it to use CHAP. Still, fitting a software-implemented, telephone-connection-oriented protocol like PPP into a situation where burst transmission and collision avoidance are the orders of the day seems odd to me, so I don't trust my impression. If someone could help clear up my ignorance and misconceptions before I talk with a Lucent "real engineer" next week, I would appreciate it. -- M/S 258-5 | 1024-bit PGP fingerprint: | tweten@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center | 41 B0 89 0A 8F 94 6C 59 | (650) 604-4416 Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 | 7C 80 10 20 25 C7 2F E6 | FAX: (650) 604-4377 We each earn what freedom of speech we defend for those who most offend us. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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