It may be a misunderstanding on my part but I believe any encrypted protocol 
would need a cert of some sort.  PEAP is an encrypted tunnel thus you will need 
a cert.  FR will generate its own certs for testing but for production you 
should generate your own.  We are making the move to 802.1x in the next few 
months and will be using a self-signed cert on the FR server and deploying it 
to the users' machines via a third party tool from a company called cloud path. 
 

Suffice it to say that windows Vista and beyond MUST have the server cert 
installed or be configured to ignore server certs before you can use any 
encrypted protocol (such as, PEAP).  It WILL NOT work out-of-the-box!  XP would 
show you a dialogue box with a warning but that functionality is gone in Vista 
and 7.

MAC OS and Linux will still allow you to download the cert and install it on 
first use, windows will not.

Your problem is going to be distributing the server cert to the clients NOT 
distributing client certs (unless you are using EAP/TLS or the like), as 
mentioned before AD makes this easy via GPO / login scripts.  However if you 
clients are not part of your domain then you have very few choices.

1) Roll your own program to install the cert for them
2) Buy a solution to install the cert (like cloud path)
3) issue instructions to the clients and have them install the certs manually
4) go around and install all the certs your self

There a pros and cons for each.  BTW for security reasons you should use a 
self-signed cert, that being the case you can make the cert valid for 99 years, 
then revoke it when you have time to redistribute them ; )

Jake Sallee
Godfather of Bandwidth
System Engineer
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
900 College St.
Belton, Texas
76513
Fone: 254-295-4658
Phax: 254-295-4221


-----Original Message-----
From: freeradius-users-bounces+jake.sallee=umhb....@lists.freeradius.org 
[mailto:freeradius-users-bounces+jake.sallee=umhb....@lists.freeradius.org] On 
Behalf Of McSparin, Joe
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 3:07 PM
To: FreeRadius users mailing list
Subject: RE: Distributing Certificates

I don't have any particular desire to use certificates thus far in testing mode 
have been using PEAP and just ignoring the warning that tells me there is a 
certificate on the server that doesn't match.  I assumed in deployment I would 
have to install certificates so the users wouldn't be confused when they saw 
that message.  I thought that FreeRadius had to have certificates set up even 
if they were just example ones.  Radiusd -X runs bootstrap which creates 
example certificates automatically.  This led me to believe that certificates 
were somehow integral to 802.1x.  Is that not the case?  If so how can you take 
certificates completely out of the equation?


Joseph R. McSparin
Network Administrator
Hill Country Memorial Hospital
830 990 6638 phone
830 990 6623 fax
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: 
freeradius-users-bounces+jmcsparin=hillcountrymemorial....@lists.freeradius.org 
[mailto:freeradius-users-bounces+jmcsparin=hillcountrymemorial....@lists.freeradius.org]
 On Behalf Of David Mitton
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 12:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Distributing Certificates

You can do such things as suggested... but you haven't articulated what your 
goal is and what you will be using the certificates for?
802.1X doesn't "require" certificates... but you may want to use them depending 
on what you are trying to do.

Dave.


Quoting "Danner, Mearl" <[email protected]>:

> If you are using AD and have a CA set up you can create   
> autoenrollment gpo's for domain attached machines. You can issue   
> either user or computer certs. Can also configure the Windows   
> wireless supplicant via gpo.
>
> Mearl
>
> From:   
> freeradius-users-bounces+jmdanner=samford....@lists.freeradius.org   
> [mailto:freeradius-users-bounces+jmdanner=samford....@lists.freeradius.org]   
> On Behalf Of McSparin, Joe
> Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 10:18 AM
> To: FreeRadius users mailing list
> Subject: Distributing Certificates
>
> Now that I have my Radius server configured I need to begin   
> implementation I have 600 computers that will be using it.  The   
> question I am wondering is do I have to go around and install a   
> certificate on every one of the computers and then maintain that   
> every year changing out the certificate on 600 computers or is there  
>  some way that the server passes out certificates when the machine   
> logs on.  Or do I have an incorrect understanding of how to   
> implement 802.1x security.
> Joseph R. McSparin
> Network Administrator
> Hill Country Memorial Hospital
> 830 990 6638 phone
> 830 990 6623 fax
> [email protected]
>
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