Cisco Systems IOS Authentication Proxy

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Subject Author Date
IOS Authentication Proxy Anwar Mahmood 05-27-08
Posted by Anwar Mahmood on May 27, 2008, 4:00 pm
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Hi All,

Wonder if anyone can help with a networking design issue.

I work at a University and we're looking to provide connectivity for
student's own laptops, as well as our own. I'm considering a couple
of ideas.

There will be a set of wired network outlets. Our laptops may be set
up by us how we want, for example Windows XP, Office 2003, Internet
Explorer, domain membership, and so on. Students won't have
administrative rights, only limited rights. They can be "trusted".

Student's own laptops could be literally anything - any make and
model, any operating system, and likely to be infected with malware.
However we'd like to provide basic connectivity anyway.

We have HP ProCurve at the edge, with Cisco at the perimeter.

To my mind the ideal scenario works as follows (but I'm open to
suggestions!);
- configure the ProCurve switches with MAC address authentication.
- "our" laptops are registered in a MAC address database
- authenticated laptops get access to a VLAN with access to
domain controllers, etc. Call it "trusted client VLAN"
- Windows connects to the domain, and users login with their
domain credentials
- student's own laptops won't be in the MAC address database, so
they connect to a completely separate VLAN - call it "untrusted client
VLAN"
- put a Cisco IOS device as the router for this "untrusted client
VLAN"
- configured with "authentication proxy" over HTTPS

Hence, when students connect their own laptops, they join the
"untrusted client VLAN". As soon as they try to browse, they are
prompted to authenticate at a web page. Once authenticated, they can
access whatever we allow them to access.

Hopefully, this combination of ProCurve MAC address authentication and
Cisco authentication proxy means that
- when University laptops are plugged in, they connect to the network
and students can login to the domain
- when student's own laptops are plugged in to the same network
outlet, they are connected to the separate untrusted client VLAN and
users have to authenticate at a web page before they can, for example,
access the Internet.

I don't really know much about Cisco IOS. Really looking for second
opinions on this approach, and implementation questions;
- Is the authentication proxy feature universal to IOS, on both
Catalyst switches and routers, or part of the firewall feature set on
routers only? (a basic question no doubt, but I've found no guidance
on Cisco's web site!)
- Will this authentication proxy feature scale to, say 50-75 laptops
connected at 10Mbps?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Kindest regards,

Anwar


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