This is wireless authentication in a nutshell, and IEEE 802.1x plays a vital role in providing privacy to the wireless LAN. It is important to understand the fact that IEEE 802.1x alone is not enough to provide the authentication facility; it uses the EAP framework along with various authentication mechanisms to do the task. IEEE 802.1x on its own provides a method to exchange the EAP messages over the link layer and defines a way of exchanging information related to the encryption key. If you know and understand the different packet formats exchanged during the authentication phase, rather than just knowing their names, you
