"Zero Config" Enterprise Wireless

When it comes to implementing more secure solutions such as RADIUS and certificates - things start to get interesting. For example, the default Windows authentication is set to "Smart Card" as opposed to "Protected EAP" which you need to use if RADIUS is involved. Also, you will need to manually accept the certificate handed to your machine as well as entering your domain credentials to complete the authentication process. 

There may be other options you may need to set such as using machine authentication over user authentication or WPA2 over WPA, etc. Now imagine having to do this for ten, hundreds, thousands of machines! Not of a fun proposition at all.

Recently, we did an implementation for a client with offices in three different cities. This client had already implemented this solution with a previous product and shared it with me. Essentially, this automates the above mentioned process. All the encryption, authentication, certificate, and login options are pushed to all domain machines via Group Policy - so basically, when a client logs into Windows it is connected and securely authenticated to the preferred network pushed by GPO automatically. Truly "Zero-Configuration" for the user and it made the rollout among all the various offices much easier!

I think this is a great solution for implementing secure wireless without the configuration headaches. Here is the link to the great article found by one of our customers and I want to share it with you (not mine, but the one linked to below).

Applying WPA2 via Group Policy in Windows Server 2003

 

Also, here's a link for configuring RADIUS in Windows Server IAS: