A network management apparatus and method for authentication and key

The present invention discloses a network device and the authentication and key management method, comprising: a network device to generate a network key (of NK); network device with a communication peer device authentication protocol interaction, and the interaction parameter according to the authentication protocol, and the NK, calculated based session key (BSK); link encryption key network equipment according to the various access technologies calculated BSK media access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) layer used (EK), and EK are provided to each of the MAC and PHY layer functions corresponding to the module. By the present invention, to achieve the legitimacy of performing a heterogeneous network authentication device verification process of the device, and a variety of different techniques to achieve a unified MAC layer key management.