Performance Analysis of Microsoft Network Policy
Server and FreeRADIUS Authentication Systems
in 802.1x based Secured Wired
Ethernet using PEAP
Farrukh Chughtai1, Riaz
UlAmin1, Abdul Sattar Malik2, and Nausheen Saeed3
1Department of Computer Science, Balochistan
University of Information Technology Engineering and Management Sciences, Pakistan
2Department
of Electrical Engineering, Bahauddin
Zakariya University, Pakistan
3Department of Computer
Science, Sardar Bahadur Khan University, Pakistan
Abstract: IEEE 802.1x is an industry standard to implement
physical port level security in wired and wireless Ethernets by using RADIUS
infrastructure. Administrators of corporate networks need secure network
admission control for their environment in a way that adds minimum traffic
overhead and does not degrade the performance of the network. This research
focuses on two widely used Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)
servers, Microsoft Network Policy Server (NPS) and FreeRADIUS to evaluate their
efficiency and network overhead according to a set of pre-defined key
performance indicators using Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol
(PEAP) in conjunction with Microsoft Challenged Handshake Authentication Protocol
version 2 (MSCHAPv2). The key performance indicators – authentication time,
reconnection time and protocol overhead were evaluated in real test bed
configuration. Results of the experiments explain why the performance of a
particular authentications system is better than the other in the given
scenario.
Keywords: IEEE 802.1x, Microsoft NPS, FreeRADIUS,
PEAP, MSCHAP2, performance analysis, RADIUS.