D-Link DGS-1510 User Manual - Page 336

DGS-1510 Series Gigabit Ethernet SmartPro Switch Web UI Reference Guide The fields that can be configured for MAC Authentication User Name and Password Settings are described below: Parameter User Name Password Description Enter the username used for MAC authentication here. This name can be up to 16 characters long. Tick the Default option to restore the username to the client's MAC address here. Enter the password used for MAC authentication here. Tick the Encrypt option save this password in the encrypted form. Tick the Default option to restore the password to the client's MAC address here. Click the Apply button to accept the changes made. The fields that can be configured for MAC Authentication Port Settings are described below: Parameter Unit From Port / To Port State Description Select the switch unit that will be used for this configuration here. Select the appropriate port range used for the configuration here. Select to enable or disable MAC authentication for the port(s) specified here. Click the Apply button to accept the changes made. Web-based Access Control Web-based Access Control (WAC) is a feature designed to authenticate a user when the user is trying to access the Internet via the Switch. The authentication process uses the HTTP or HTTPS protocol. The Switch enters the authenticating stage when users attempt to browse Web pages (e.g., http://www.dlink.com) through a Web browser. When the Switch detects HTTP or HTTPS packets and this port is unauthenticated, the Switch will launch a pop-up user name and password window to query users. Users are not able to access the Internet until the authentication process is passed. The Switch can be the authentication server itself and do the authentication based on a local database, or be a RADIUS client and perform the authentication process via the RADIUS protocol with a remote RADIUS server. The client user initiates the authentication process of WAC by attempting to gain Web access. D-Link's implementation of WAC uses a virtual IP that is exclusively used by the WAC function and is not known by any other modules of the Switch. In fact, to avoid affecting a Switch's other features, WAC will only use a virtual IP address to communicate with hosts. Thus, all authentication requests must be sent to a virtual IP address but not to the IP address of the Switch's physical interface. Virtual IP works like this, when a host PC communicates with the WAC Switch through a virtual IP, the virtual IP is transformed into the physical IPIF (IP interface) address of the Switch to make the communication possible. The host PC and other servers' IP configurations do not depend on the virtual IP of WAC. The virtual IP does not respond to any ICMP packets or ARP requests, which means it is not allowed to configure a virtual IP on the same subnet as the Switch's IPIF (IP interface) or the same subnet as the host PCs' subnet. As all packets to a virtual IP from authenticated and authenticating hosts will be trapped to the Switch's CPU, if the virtual IP is the same as other servers or PCs, the hosts on the WAC-enabled ports cannot communicate with the server or PC, which really own the IP address. If the hosts need to access the server or PC, the virtual IP cannot be the same as the one of the server or PC. If a host PC uses a proxy to access the Web, to make the authentication work properly the user of the PC should add the virtual IP to the exception of the proxy configuration. Whether or not a virtual IP is specified, users can access the WAC pages through the Switch's system IP. When a virtual IP is not specified, the authenticating Web request will be redirected to the Switch's system IP. The Switch's implementation of WAC features a user-defined port number that allows the configuration of the TCP port for either the HTTP or HTTPS protocols. This TCP port for HTTP or HTTPs is used to identify the HTTP or HTTPs packets that will be trapped to the CPU for 325