802.1x or other wired authentication available?

[cuekay]

as the line of Asus routers with the Merlin firmware have repeatedly exceeded my expectations, I just thought I'd ask to see if these routers can manage authentication for clients connected by wire the same way clients are connected wirelessly. I stumbled upon this particular feature while setting up the freeradius server for use with my Asus router and was advised to look for switches that are 802.1x capable for this. If not, are there any other options for configuring a network with an Asus router with wired authentication? Thanks!

 

[sfx2000]

A "smart"/managed switch would do this - does beg the question though...

Why?

Why introduce complexity when most, if not all, of your wired clients are trusted?

 

[cuekay]

oops! I really should have introduced a bit more context as to the reason why I was looking into this. Periodically, we have guests over and would prefer to plug-in rather than use the wifi and will take certain liberties of plugging in without thinking twice about it. My approach to security is to preempt Murphy's Law as much as possible and I thought that 802.1x or just wired authentication period presented a ready solution for this particular potential problem.

I completely agree with you that for a non-enterprise environment, and even in a good deal of enterprise environments, this kind of complexity is unnecessary. I just thought that the wired authentication was the immediately available solution for my particular scenario.

Thanks!

 

[sfx2000]

Periodically, we have guests over and would prefer to plug-in rather than use the wifi and will take certain liberties of plugging in without thinking twice about it

You're the admin - don't let them plug in

 

[L&LD]

You're the admin - don't let them plug in

You can have my cash, you can steal my credit cards and you can take my lover, but you can't have access to my network!!!

 

[cuekay]

at this point, I think i'm going to go with setting up iptables for mac filtering for wired devices even though I understand that malicious guests will know about mac spoofing and get around that. My intended "audience" consists of tech-illiterate folks whom I don't want stumbling into sensitive info.

yeah, you'd be surprised at how ineffective stating "I'm the admin" is when coming out of my mouth.