wireless NICs on a corporate network

[FoBoT]

does an XP box with a wireless NIC connect to the network without someone logged on?

everytime i log on, i see the little messages about it connecting and passing the authentication credentials, etc. so it appears that until i do that logon, the NIC hasn't been connected

if not, remote management tools can't connect to it, correct?

is there a way around this? or is this a reason not to use wireless on corporate networks?

 

[casper114]

Well actually that's a good question, I have noticed on my home network the same thing occuring. However I leave my terminal services up and connected most of the tome and they stay connected (it doesn't log my remote session off automaticaly) so I would assume that it just refreshes the connection status just for the icon purposes.

 

[FoBoT]

yeah, it isn't a problem once a logon has happened, and if they just lock thier desktop. but if they logoff, doesn't the PC drop off the network?

i can experiment with this at home, but i don't have a WAP here at work to test it

i was in a meeting and somebody is gung ho about us using more wireless LAN's and at the same time we are expanding our use of remote mangement and i just want to try to make sure the uppity ups know about this, IF it is an issue

 

[ktwebb]

As long as your using XP's wireless utility it's a service and doesn't need to have someone logged on to authenticate. That is if your using standard authentication methods and you would have to login the first time to set the parameters. I can't speak to more elaborate authentication methods. EAP, Radius etc..

 

[casper114]

Yea, as long as the pc is on you can access it remotely unless it's your terminal server then you have to have a local account logged on I believe.

 

[nweaver]

Depends on the card/client. This is what is called SSO (or single sign on) in the wireless world. Usually used with some sort of EAP authentication. You put in UN/PW, the wireless client intercepts them, uses them to connect to the AP and start authentication. If the radius server/AP return valid, it gets it's IP address and then start the normal Domain Login procedure.

You can setup SSO type setups with LEAP, EAP-Fast, EAP-TLS, PEAP, etc. TLS can be setup with a machine certificate iirc.

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: ktwebb
As long as your using XP's wireless utility it's a service and doesn't need to have someone logged on to authenticate. That is if your using standard authentication methods and you would have to login the first time to set the parameters. I can't speak to more elaborate authentication methods. EAP, Radius etc..

so maybe what i saw at home was something like a 3rd party app for that NIC specifically

thanks, i'll have to play around with it

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: ktwebb
As long as your using XP's wireless utility it's a service and doesn't need to have someone logged on to authenticate. That is if your using standard authentication methods and you would have to login the first time to set the parameters. I can't speak to more elaborate authentication methods. EAP, Radius etc..

sounds like they are using EAP backended by windows domain. That's pretty standard for a "secure" wireless network.

that is for authenticating to the wireless network which is far more important than any remote issues.