ISL36356A-APDK Datasheet, PDF (4/7 Pages) Intersil Corporation – PRISM 11Mbps Wireless Local Area Network Access Point

ISL36356A-APDK
Configuration Wizard
To ease the process of configuring the Access Point, a
Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, XP wizard is included
that can be customized to fit specific needs. It automatically
detects an AP in the network, even if it is misconfigured, and
can configure the IP settings in all common environments
(DHCP, auto IP and fixed IP). After the IP settings are
configured correctly, it starts the Web interface to finish the
configuration.
WPA Overview
WiFi Protected Access (WPA) provides two security
enhancements to wireless LANs: improved data encryption
and user authentication.
To improve data encryption, WPA uses a Temporal Key
Integrity Protocol (TKIP). This protocol provides per-packet
key mixing, a message integrity check (MIC) called Michael,
an extended initialization vector (IV) with sequencing rules,
and a re-keying mechanism.
For user authentication, WPA implements 802.1X and the
Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) to provide a
framework for strong user authentication. This framework
utilizes a central authentication server, such as RADIUS, to
authenticate each user on the network before they join it,
and also employs "mutual authentication" so that the
wireless user does not accidentally join a rogue network that
might steal its network credentials.
In networks in which there is no authentication server or EAP
framework, WPA runs in a special Pre-Shared Key (PSK)
mode. In this mode, similar to the current WEP environment,
a station and access point use the same manually-entered
key to establish an association. Once this key is verified,
WPA then encrypts frames using TKIP to provide improved
security.
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