From: "Hans J. Schultz" <[email protected]>
Hosts that support 802.1X authentication are able to authenticate
themselves by exchanging EAPOL frames with an authenticator (Ethernet
bridge, in this case) and an authentication server. Access to the
network is only granted by the authenticator to successfully
authenticated hosts.
The above is implemented in the bridge using the "locked" bridge port
option. When enabled, link-local frames (e.g., EAPOL) can be locally
received by the bridge, but all other frames are dropped unless the
host
is authenticated. That is, unless the user space control plane
installed
an FDB entry according to which the source address of the frame is
located behind the locked ingress port. The entry can be dynamic, in
which case learning needs to be enabled so that the entry will be
refreshed by incoming traffic.
There are deployments in which not all the devices connected to the
authenticator (the bridge) support 802.1X. Such devices can include
printers and cameras. One option to support such deployments is to
unlock the bridge ports connecting these devices, but a slightly more
secure option is to use MAB. When MAB is enabled, the MAC address of
the
connected device is used as the user name and password for the
authentication.
For MAB to work, the user space control plane needs to be notified
about
MAC addresses that are trying to gain access so that they will be
compared against an allow list. This can be implemented via the
regular
learning process with the sole difference that learned FDB entries are
installed with a new "locked" flag indicating that the entry cannot be
used to authenticate the device. The flag cannot be set by user space,
but user space can clear the flag by replacing the entry, thereby
authenticating the device.
Locked FDB entries implement the following semantics with regards to
roaming, aging and forwarding:
1. Roaming: Locked FDB entries can roam to unlocked (authorized)
ports,
in which case the "locked" flag is cleared. FDB entries cannot roam
to locked ports regardless of MAB being enabled or not. Therefore,
locked FDB entries are only created if an FDB entry with the given
{MAC,
VID} does not already exist. This behavior prevents unauthenticated
devices from disrupting traffic destined to already authenticated
devices.
2. Aging: Locked FDB entries age and refresh by incoming traffic like
regular entries.
3. Forwarding: Locked FDB entries forward traffic like regular
entries.
If user space detects an unauthorized MAC behind a locked port and
wishes to prevent traffic with this MAC DA from reaching the host,
it
can do so using tc or a different mechanism.
