Subject: RE: PANA FAQ

From: Jacques Caron <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:12:48 +0200

Hi,

Quick comments...

At 20:35 27/06/2002, [email-masked] wrote:
>  or may be used as a
>mechanism for periodic reauthentication of an existing connection that
>was originally authenticated using an L2 mechanism.

I believe all L2 authentication mechanisms indicated above (802.1X, PPP) 
allow for periodic re-authentication. Actually, I'm currently connected via 
an 802.1X-authenticated WLAN, and my AP is re-authenticating me every 5 
minutes (a full 4 round-trip EAP SRP authentication each time to my RADIUS 
server 500 km away -- I should really implement the SRP fast re-auth part) 
because my RADIUS server told it to.

>If a network is unwilling to provide
>access (or L2 connectivity) without authenticating at L2, PANA would
>be useless anyway. However if such networks do exist (I cannot give an
>example of such at this time :( ) and the operator is willing to
>provide L2 connectivity without authentication and will only provide
>L3 connectivity if authentication is succesful, then there is no
>reason to limit the scope of PANA in such networks.

Providing L3 addresses and L3 connectivity are two different things. You 
can provide the former without the latter. But I doubt anyone would give L2 
connectivity if they don't want to give L3 connectivity and they can use L2 
authentication. For what purposes?

Jacques.