Balram Vakil

The Extension of 802.11ax – WiFi 6E

Looking at the trend of devices that are becoming mobile and/or are becoming WiFi capable, it is obvious that WLAN would need more bandwidth and user handling capabilities. There are studies and numbers already out showing a growing need for WLAN infrastructure and the efficient technology to accommodate the new devices and applications. These applicationsContinue reading “The Extension of 802.11ax – WiFi 6E”

WPA3 Deep Dive

Continuing to the previous post wherein we discussed some theory about WPA3 and Dragonfly; in this post, I will try to explain WPA3 using packet captures analysis. The WLAN industry is making products easy to use and configure so I guess configuring WPA3 may not be an issue as it is a simple step ofContinue reading “WPA3 Deep Dive”

[Updated] Guest user-auth with ClearPass and Arista APs – Using CoA

In the previous twisted workflow where on receiving Radius Reject message leading to provide access to the WLAN may not look good when considering the accounting part of the authentication. To handle it in a better way, Arista APs can now support role-based capabilities which makes the understanding of the process authorization easy. Using theseContinue reading “[Updated] Guest user-auth with ClearPass and Arista APs – Using CoA”

Power Save Mechanisms – 802.11ax

Power save is one of the important requirements for mobile devices. WiFi can drain the battery of a mobile device quickly. Hence in 802.11 networks power save management is achieved based on active and doze states of a mobile device. In the active state, the mobile device is communicating to the AP and in dozeContinue reading “Power Save Mechanisms – 802.11ax”

WPA3 and DragonFly (SAE)

Overview: WPA3 has brought in new advantages over WPA2 in order to overcome issues such as Offline Dictionary Attacks and provide advantages of forward Secrecy. This does look promising to secure existing WPA2 networks that are currently in use. In general, WPA3 doesn’t define new protocols but instead raises mandatory support for existing protocols thatContinue reading “WPA3 and DragonFly (SAE)”

Third radio Connectivity tests with Arista APs.

For a WiFi Network administrator, it is a necessary task to keep checking the network health of the APs. Most of the management planes show the health of the AP which includes information like AP’s uptime, AP RF status, 802.11 authentications or association status, etc. Arista does the same by the tool called Cloud VisionContinue reading “Third radio Connectivity tests with Arista APs.”

802.11ax – OFDMA

OFDMA is currently gathering a lot of attention in the WiFi community. This is because of the demand for ever-increasing growth of mobile devices, internet, multimedia, and various other services. OFDMA based systems are capable of providing high data rates, efficient sharing of resources, and take advantage of multipath. Already proven its importance in otherContinue reading “802.11ax – OFDMA”

Should an existing WLAN network be upgraded to 802.11ax now?

802.11ax has definitely brought a lot of awesome features making communication more secure, efficient and fast. The type of features and updates in 802.11ax will for sure change the way WLAN works and has been operating till now. Although everything turns out to be good OR rather best with 802.11ax, the question always remains; whenContinue reading “Should an existing WLAN network be upgraded to 802.11ax now?”

Testing 802.11w by sending deauth packets: Broadcast and Unicast.

802.11w standard was introduced to protect WLAN management frames so that the WLAN stations can be protected against deauthentication OR Rogue Association attacks sent by an attacker. A very interesting piece here is sending spoofed deauthentication broadcast OR Unicast messages. There are multiple software that can be used for this purpose, but I will beContinue reading “Testing 802.11w by sending deauth packets: Broadcast and Unicast.”

Guest user-auth with ClearPass and Arista APs – Using CoA

Problem Statement/Use Case: Guest access in an Enterprise network has become a necessity. As mobile devices are getting widely accepted the data demands are as well increasing every day. In an Enterprise Network a Guest network is isolated and when considering the fact that all devices should have access to internet; care should be takenContinue reading “Guest user-auth with ClearPass and Arista APs – Using CoA”