A practical analysis of EAP authentication methods

In the context of a growing concern for data security, network access control has become an important part of every network security system. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparison between different EAP Methods that can be used with IEEE 802.1x, Port Based Network Access Control, standard as a means of protecting a computer network against unauthorized access. Three of the most common methods, EAP-MD5, EAP-TLS and PEAP, are compared with regard to time and packet performance both between each other and against a default situation, with no access control in place. The factors considered, authentication and reauthentication time, packet loss during reconnection and throughput are measured in a specially designed test environment using test equipment capable of accurate measurement of time in the range of milliseconds and constant high rate traffic generation.