Design and Implementation of WIRE1x

This paper presents the design and implementation of WIRE1x. The WIRE1x is an open-source implementation of IEEE 802.1x client (supplicant) developed by the Wireless Internet Research & Engineering (WIRE) Laboratory. The IEEE 802.1x standard defines a port-based network access control to authenticate and authorize devices interconnected by various IEEE 802 LANs. The IEEE 802.11i also incorporates 802.1x as its authentication solution for IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs. The motivation for the development of WIRE1x is to help the deployment of IEEE 802.1x to secure wireless WLANs. It would also achieve seamless roaming among different wireless LANs if the new IEEE standards are widely-deployed. The WIRE1x has been practically used on the wireless LANs deployed at the National Tsing Hua University and many other places. This paper illustrates the software architecture and design principles of WIRE1x so people could comprehend the source code of WIRE1x easily.