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Configure Dynamic VLAN Assignment with ISE and Catalyst 9800 Wireless LAN Controller

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Introduction

This document describes how to configure the Catalyst 9800 WLC and Cisco ISE to assign Wireless LAN (WLAN).

Requirements

Cisco recommends that you have knowledge of these topics:

Have basic knowledge of the Wireless LAN Controller (WLC and Lightweight Access Points (LAPs).
Have functional knowledge of the AAA server such as Identity Services Engine (ISE).
Have a thorough knowledge of wireless networks and wireless security issues.
Have functional knowledge on dynamic Virtual LAN (VLAN) assignment.
Have basic knowledge of Control and Provisioning for Wireless Access Point (CAPWAP).

Components Used

The information in this document is based on these software and hardware versions:

Cisco Catalyst 9800 WLC (Catalyst 9800-CL) that runs firmware release 16.12.4a.
Cisco 2800 Series LAP in local mode.
Native Windows 10 supplicant.
Cisco ISE that runs version 2.7.
Cisco 3850 series switch that runs firmware release 16.9.6.

The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is live, ensure that you understand the potential impact of any command.

Background Information

Dynamic vlan assignment with radius server.

This document describes the concept of dynamic VLAN assignment and how to configure the Catalyst 9800 wireless LAN controller (WLC) and Cisco Identity Service Engine (ISE) to assign wireless LAN (WLAN) in order to accomplish this for the wireless clients.

In most Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) systems, each WLAN has a static policy that applies to all clients associated with a Service Set Identifier (SSID). Although powerful, this method has limitations because it requires clients to associate with different SSIDs to inherit different QoS and security policies.

However, the Cisco WLAN solution supports identity networking. This allows the network to advertise a single SSID and allows specific users to inherit different QoS or security policies based on the user credential.

Dynamic VLAN assignment is one such feature that places a wireless user into a specific VLAN based on the credentials supplied by the user. The task to assign users to a specific VLAN is handled by a RADIUS authentication server, such as Cisco ISE. This can be used, for example, to allow the wireless host to remain on the same VLAN as it moves within a campus network.

Therefore, when a client attempts to associate to a LAP registered with a controller, the WLC passes the credentials of the user to the RADIUS server for validation. Once the authentication is successful, the RADIUS server passes certain Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) attributes to the user. These RADIUS attributes decide the VLAN ID that must be assigned to the wireless client. The SSID of the client does not matter because the user is always assigned to this predetermined VLAN ID.

The RADIUS user attributes used for the VLAN ID assignment are:

IETF 64 (Tunnel Type)—Set this to VLAN.
IETF 65 (Tunnel Medium Type)—Set this to 802.
IETF 81 (Tunnel Private Group ID)—Set this to VLAN ID.

The VLAN ID is 12-bits and takes a value between 1 and 4094, inclusive. Because the Tunnel-Private-Group-ID is of type string, as defined in RFC2868 for use with IEEE 802.1X, the VLAN ID integer value is encoded as a string. When these tunnel attributes are sent, it is necessary to enter them in the Tag field.

In this section, you are presented with the information to configure the features described in this document.

Network Diagram

This document uses this network setup:

These are the configuration details of the components used in this diagram:

The IP address of Cisco ISE (RADIUS) server is 10.10.1.24.
The Management Interface address of the WLC is 10.10.1.17.
The internal DHCP server on the controller is used to assign the IP address to wireless clients.
This document uses 802.1x with PEAP as the security mechanism.
VLAN102 is used throughout this configuration. The username smith -102 is configured to be placed into the VLAN102 by the RADIUS server.

Configuration Steps

This configuration is separated into three categories:

Cisco ISE Configuration.
Configure the Switch for Multiple VLANs.
Catalyst 9800 WLC Configuration.

Cisco ISE Configuration

This configuration requires these steps:

Configure the Catalyst WLC as an AAA Client on the Cisco ISE Server.
Configure Internal users on Cisco ISE.
Configure the RADIUS (IETF) attributes used for dynamic VLAN Assignment on Cisco ISE.

Step 1. Configure the Catalyst WLC as an AAA Client on the Cisco ISE server

This procedure explains how to add the WLC as a AAA client on the ISE server so that the WLC can pass the user credentials to ISE.

Complete these steps:

From the ISE GUI, navigate to Administration > Network Resources > Network Devices and select Add .
Complete the configuration with the WLC management IP address and RADIUS shared secret between WLC and ISE as shown in the image:

Configuration with the WLC management IP address and Radius shared secret between WLC and ISE

Step 2. Configure internal users on Cisco ISE

This procedure explains how to add the users on the internal user database of Cisco ISE.

From the ISE GUI, navigate to Administration > Identity Management > Identities and select Add .
Complete the configuration with the username, password, and user group as shown in the image:

Configuration with the username, password, and user group

Step 3. Configure the RADIUS (IETF) attributes used for dynamic VLAN Assignment

This procedure explains how to create an authorization profile and an authentication policy for wireless users.

From the ISE GUI, navigate to Policy > Policy Elements > Results > Authorization > Authorization profiles and select Add to create a new profile.
Complete the authorization profile configuration with VLAN information for the respective group. This image shows jonathga-VLAN-102 group configuration settings.

After the authorization profiles are configured, an authentication policy for wireless users needs to be created. You can use a new Custom policy or modify the Default Policy set. In this example, a custom profile is created.

Navigate to Policy > Policy Sets and select Add to create a new policy as shown in the image:

Now you need to create authorization policies for users in order to assign a respective authorization profile based on group membership.

Open the Authorization policy section and create policies to accomplish that requirement as shown in the image:

Configure the Switch for Multiple VLANs

To allow multiple VLANs through the switch, you need to issue these commands to configure the switch port connected to the controller:

Note : By default, most of the switches allow all VLANs created on that switch via the trunk port. If a wired network is connected to the switch, then this same configuration can be applied to the switch port that connects to the wired network. This enables the communication between the same VLANs in the wired and wireless network.

Catalyst 9800 WLC Configuration

Configure the WLC with the Details of the Authentication Server.
Configure the VLANs.
Configure the WLANs (SSID).
Configure the Policy Profile.
Configure the Policy tag.
Assign the Policy tag to an AP.

Step 1. Configure the WLC with the Details of the Authentication Server

It is necessary to configure the WLC so it can communicate with the RADIUS server to authenticate the clients.

From the controller GUI, navigate to Configuration > Security > AAA > Servers / Groups > RADIUS > Servers > + Add and enter the RADIUS server information as shown in the image:

In order to add the RADIUS server to a RADIUS group, navigate to Configuration > Security > AAA > Servers / Groups > RADIUS > Server Groups > + Add as shown in the image:

In order to create an Authentication Method List, navigate to Configuration > Security > AAA > AAA Method List > Authentication > + Add as shown in the images:

Navigate to authentication and select +Add

Step 2. Configure the VLANs

This procedure explains how to configure VLANs on the Catalyst 9800 WLC. As explained earlier in this document, the VLAN ID specified under the Tunnel-Private-Group ID attribute of the RADIUS server must also exist in the WLC.

In the example, the user smith-102 is specified with the Tunnel-Private-Group ID of 102 (VLAN =102) on the RADIUS server.

Navigate to Configuration > Layer2 > VLAN > VLAN > + Add as shown in the image:

Enter the needed information as shown in the image:

Note : If you do not specify a name, the VLAN automatically gets assigned the name of VLANXXXX, where XXXX is the VLAN ID.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 for all the needed VLANs, once done you can continue to step 3.

If you have a port channel in use, navigate to Configuration > Interface > Logical > PortChannel name > General . If you see it configured as Allowed VLAN = All you are done with the configuration. If you see Allowed VLAN = VLANs IDs , add the needed VLANs and after that select Update & Apply to Device .
If you do not have port channel in use, navigate to Configuration > Interface > Ethernet > Interface Name > General . If you see it configured as Allowed VLAN = All you are done with the configuration. If you see Allowed VLAN = VLANs IDs , add the needed VLANs and after that select Update & Apply to Device .

This images show the configuration related to the interface setup if you use All or specific VLAN IDs.

The configuration related to the interface setup if you use ALL VLAN IDs

Step 3. Configure the WLANs (SSID)

This procedure explains how to configure the WLANs in the WLC.

In order to create the WLAN. Navigate to Configuration > Wireless > WLANs > + Add and configure the network as needed, as shown in the image:

Enter the WLAN information as shown in the image:

Navigate to Security tab and select the needed security method. In this case WPA2 + 802.1x as shown in the images:

From Security > AAA tab, select the authentication method created on step 3 from Configure the WLC with the Details of the Authentication Server section as shown in the image:

Select the authentication method created previously

Step 4. Configure the Policy Profile

This procedure explains how to configure the Policy Profile in the WLC.

Navigate to Configuration > Tags & Profiles > Policy Profile and either configure your default-policy-profile or create a new one as shown in the images:

From the Access Policies tab assign the VLAN to which the wireless clients are assigned when they connect to this WLAN by default as shown in the image:

Note : In the example provided, it is the job of the RADIUS server to assign a wireless client to a specific VLAN upon successful authentication, therefore the VLAN configured on the policy profile can be a black hole VLAN, the RADIUS server overrides this mapping and assigns the user that comes through that WLAN to the VLAN specified under the user Tunnel-Group-Private-ID field in the RADIUS server.

From the Advance tab, enable the Allow AAA Override check box to override the WLC configuration when the RADIUS server returns the attributes needed to place the client on the proper VLAN as shown in the image:

Step 5. Configure the Policy Tag

This procedure explains how to configure the Policy tag in the WLC.

Navigate to Configuration > Tags & Profiles > Tags > Policy and add a new one if needed as shown in the image:

Add a name to the Policy Tag and select +Add , as shown in the image:

Link your WLAN Profile to the desired Policy Profile as shown in the images:

Step 6. Assign the Policy Tag to an AP

Navigate to Configuration > Wireless > Access Points > AP Name > General Tags and assign the relevant policy tag and then select Update & Apply to Device as shown in the image:

Assign the relevant policy tag and select Update & Apply to Device

Caution : Be aware that changing the policy tag on an AP results in the AP disconnecting from the WLC and then reconnecting.

Flexconnect

The Flexconnect feature allows APs to send wireless client data to egress through the AP LAN port when configured as a trunk. This mode, known as Flexconnect Local Switching, allows the AP to segregate client traffic by tagging it in separate VLANs from its management interface. This section provides instructions on how to configure Dynamic VLAN assignment for the local switching scenario.

Note : The steps outlined in the previous section are applicable to the Flexconnect scenario as well. To complete the configuration for Flexconnect, please do the additional steps provided in this section.

To allow multiple VLANs through the switch, you need to issue the next commands to configure the switch port connected to the AP:

Switch(config-if)# switchport mode trunk
Switch(config-if)# switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q

Note : By default, most of the switches allow all VLANs created on the switch via the trunk port.

Flexconnect Policy Profile configuration

Navigate to Configuration > Tags & Profiles > Policy Profile > +Add and create a new policy.

Note : Starting with the 17.9.x code, the policy-profile appearance has been updated as depicted in the picture.

Note : The VLAN configured on this step is not required to be present on the VLAN list of the WLC. Necessary VLANs are added on the Flex-Profile later, which creates the VLANs on the AP itself.

Assign the Flexconnect policy profile to a WLAN and Policy tag

Note : A Policy Tag is used to link the WLAN with the Policy Profile. You can either create a new Policy Tag or use the default-policy tag.

Click on the Apply to Device button.

Configure the Flex Profile

To dynamically assign a VLAN ID via RADIUS on a FlexConnect AP, it is necessary for the VLAN ID mentioned in the Tunnel-Private-Group ID attribute of the RADIUS response to be present on the access points. The VLANs are configured on the Flex profile.

Note : The native VLAN ID refers management VLAN for the AP, so it must match the native VLAN configuration of the switch the AP is connected to

Note : In step 3 of the section Flexconnect Policy Profile Configuration, you configured the default VLAN assigned to the SSID. If you use a VLAN name on that step, ensure that you use the same VLAN name on the Flex Profile configuration, otherwise, clients are not able to connect to the WLAN.

Flex Site tag configuration

Navigate to Configuration > Tags & Profiles > Tags > Site > +Add, to create a new site tag .

Assign the Policy and Site Tag to an AP.

Navigate to Configuration > Wireless > Access Points > AP Name > General Tags, assign the relevant policy and site tag and then click Update & Apply to Device.

Caution : Be aware that changing the policy and site tag on an AP results in the AP disconnecting from the WLC and then reconnecting.

Note : If the AP is configured in Local mode (or any other mode) and then it gets a Site Tag with the "Enable Local Site" setting disabled, the AP reboots and comes back in FlexConnect mode

Use this section to confirm that your configuration works properly.

Configure the test client SSID profile using the proper EAP protocol and credentials defined in ISE that can return a Dynamic VLAN assignment. Once you are prompted for a username and password, enter the information of the user mapped to a VLAN on ISE.

In the previous example, notice that smith-102 is assigned to the VLAN102 as specified in the RADIUS server. This example uses this username to receive authentication and to be assigned to a VLAN by the RADIUS server:

Once the authentication is completed, you need to verify that your client is assigned to the proper VLAN as per the RADIUS attributes sent. Complete these steps to accomplish this task:

From this window, you can observe that this client is assigned to VLAN102 as per the RADIUS attributes configured on the RADIUS server.

From the CLI you can use the show wireless client summary detail to view the same information as shown in the image:

Verify that your client is assigned to the proper VLAN from the CLI

From the controller GUI, navigate to Troubleshooting > Radioactive Trace > +Add .
Enter the Mac Address of the wireless client.
Select Start .
Connect the client with the WLAN.
Navigate to Stop > Generate > Choose 10 minutes > Apply to Device > Select the trace file to download the log .

This portion of the trace output ensures a successful transmission of RADIUS attributes:

Troubleshoot

There is currently no specific troubleshooting information available for this configuration.

Related Information

End User Guide
Cisco Technical Support & Downloads

Revision History

Contributed by Cisco Engineers

Jonathan de Jesus Garcia Cisco TAC Engineer
Jose Pablo Munoz Cisco TAC Engineer

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Configuration Guide on Dynamic VLAN with the VLAN Assignment function of RADIUS

OC200 , OC300 , Omada Software Controller , Omada Cloud-Based Controller

Recent updates may have expanded access to feature(s) discussed in this FAQ. Visit your product's support page, select the correct hardware version for your device and check either the Datasheet or the firmware section for the latest improvements added to your product.

With the VLAN Assignment feature of RADIUS, the Omada SDN solution can put clients authenticated by different accounts to the corresponding VLANs. In this way, clients will obtain IP addresses from different VLANs, and you don't have to create many SSIDs bound with different VLANs for wireless networks, or bind the PVIDs of the switch ports to specific VLANs for wired networks.

To achieve the above features, you will need the Omada SDN Controller, EAP for wireless assignment, JetStream Switch for wired assignment, and an external RADIUS server. In this article, we will share the configuration guide for below network topology.

Step 1. Set up the RADIUS server.

Here we run a FreeRADIUS ® server on a Linux server. For more information on installation and configuration, please refer to the official website: https://freeradius.org/

First, edit the “ clients.conf ” file, set the client IP address as “192.168.0.0/24” and the password as “tplink”.

Next, edit the “ users ” file, create two accounts “test10” and “test20” in VLAN10 and VLAN20, respectively.

You may also edit the “ eap.conf ” to modify the EAP type for WPA-Enterprise. After configuration, run the RADIUS server to listen for access requests.

Step 2. Create the RADIUS profile.

Go to Authentication --- RADIUS Profile, create a new profile bound with the RADIUS server, and check “Enable VLAN Assignment for Wireless Network” to assign VLANs for wireless clients.

Step 3. Create more VLAN for VLAN assignments.

Assuming all Omada devices have been adopted by the controller, go to Settings --- Wired Networks --- LAN, and create two interfaces with VLAN10 and VLAN20.

Step 4. VLAN assignment for wireless networks.

Go to Settings – Wireless Networks, and create a new SSID with WPA-Enterprise as below. For differences between WPA-Personal and WPA-Enterprise, please refer to FAQ500 .

When connecting your client to the SSID, you will be asked to choose the authentication type of WPA-Enterprise, and enter the account username and password. After successfully authenticating with account “test10”, the client will obtain an IP address from VLAN10, while with account “test20”, it will get that from VLAN20.

Step 5. VLAN assignment for wired networks.

Go to Authentication --- 802.1X and enable the feature, select Authentication Type as “Port Based”, enable “VLAN Assignment” and check the Ports to be authenticated according to your requirements.

Not to click the ports twice to enable MAB for them.

Then go to Wired Networks --- LAN --- Profile, create a new port profile, add VLAN10 and VLAN20 to untagged networks, and make sure the 802.1X Control mode is Auto.

Then Go to Devices, click your switch, go to Ports, check the authentication ports, and batch edit to change the port profile to the one created just now.

For 802.1X authentication, you may need to run TP-Link 802.1X Client Software (click here to download) for authentication. Please refer to FAQ787 and Step 3. For detailed guidance.

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Network Guys

Share your knowledge!

How to use 802.1x/mac-auth and dynamic VLAN assignment

Hello guys! Today I want to show you how to secure your edge-switches with 802.1x and mac-authentication fallback in combination with HPE comware-based switches. The 802.1x protocol is used for network access control. For devices like printers, cameras, etc. we will use mac-authentication as a fallback. We will also use dynamic VLAN assignment for the connected ports.

Our radius server will be Microsoft NPS. You can activate this role on the Windows server:

After the installation, open the NPS console and register the radius server in your Active Directory:

add your switches or your management network as a radius-client:

the shared secret will be used in the switch configuration. In created two groups within my test environment:

“ VLAN2-802.1x ” containing computer accounts
“ VLAN3-MAC-Auth ” containing user accounts (username+password = mac-address of the device)

So we will now configure two network policies for our network access control:

I also configured a NAS Identifier so no other device can use the radius server. The clients will use their computer certificate so you will need a running internal certification authority. Choose PEAP only as the authentication method:

the next step is for our dynamic VLAN assignment. Dot1x devices are bound to VLAN 2:

the final dot1x configuration in the NPS:

the second network policy is for the mac-based authentication:

Comware switches are sending MAC-Auth-requests via PAP (maybe you know how to change it to CHAP):

final MAC auth profile:

for now we have built up our authentication server. Now let’s go to the switch configuration. You have global configuration parameters and parameters for each interface. The best way is to use interface-range command to be safe at your configuration. Users who cant authenticate, will be forced to VLAN 999 (quarantine VLAN with no gateway). Here are the global parameters with explanations inline:

now we will configure the interfaces: Added 2 entries

the last part is to configure all windows clients to send 802.1x auth data to the cable network. I’ve done this via a global group policy. You can find the settings under Computer Configuration / Policies / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Wired Network (IEEE 802.3) Policies:

So how does a working 802.1x-auth looks like?

%Jan 3 01:59:59:531 2013 edge-switch-01 DOT1X/6/DOT1X_LOGIN_SUCC: -IfName=GigabitEthernet1/0/10-MACAddr=0023-2415-42a3-AccessVLANID=1- AuthorizationVLANID=2 -Username= host/PC123.mycompany.local ; User passed 802.1X authentication and came online.

Successful Mac-Authentication of a printer:

%Jan 3 01:31:28:782 2013 de-pad-l19-edg01 MACA/6/MACA_LOGIN_SUCC: -IfName=GigabitEthernet1/0/9-MACAddr=0017-c82d-e9bf-AccessVLANID=1- AuthorizationVLANID=3 -Username= 0017c82de9bf -UsernameFormat=MAC address; User passed MAC authentication and came online.

I tried to draw a flow chart which shows the authentication process, I hope it’s ok for you :)

Do you have questions? Feel free to write them into the comments and I will try to answer.

Have a nice and sunny day!

/edit: If you can’t see success and failure events, follow this instruction: NPS / Radius Server is not logging

/edit 2018-05-14: I corrected the global and interface configuration, we had problems with the old configuration

12 Responses

Thanks for this, I need to setup dynamic VLAN assignment in the near future but for Juniper equipment.

This at least gives me a good starting point, thanks for the write up.

Many thanks for the perfect tutorial on How to use 802.1x/Mac-Auth and dynamic VLAN assignment. Many of us can take help from it. Really nice.

Nice write-up. This was a great starting point for configuring the base for dynamic polices. Thanks!

hi Mike, how ‘s about hybrid port with voice-vlan? does it work?

thanks Tung Duong

we had several problems with this config, currently we are investigating hyprid ports with “port security” command. I will update this post if we have prooved this version.

Can you tell me why I would do this over conventional static VLANs? What are the benefits radius dynamic VLANs?

we have customers which want to divide the network for clients, printers and “special devices”. So you have different group/radius-policies to directly place the devices in the right VLAN. Dynamic VLAN is only a bonus feature which you can use. Of course, you can use only the 802.1x and Mac authentication for security purpose.

I’m on the desktop side of things, so apologies if I use any incorrect terminology here.

Our Infrastructure team are looking at introducing 8021x in our schools. They have a test setup where all 8021x devices pick up a data centre VLAN regardless of which building they’re in – eg 10.100.50.

Each building WIRED has its own unique IP – SchoolA=10.120, SchoolB = 10.130 and so on.

I’ve asked if the 8021x setup can be where 8021x devices in SchoolA will get 10.120.50; SchoolB will get 10.130.50

This would allow us to easily determine which building LaptopA actually is, in the same way as we can with our wired desktops. It also saves on SCCM boundary issues causing applications/updates to be pulled over the WAN rather than the LAN.

It’s been suggested that this may not be possible. Could someone confirm this?

Thanks in advance.

Hello! This is of course possible!

My idea (with examples):

SchoolA=10.120 (Location: Chicago) SchoolB=10.130 (Location: Dallas)

So at Chicago you will have VLAN 333, every device is getting an IP address with 10.120.x.x. At Dallas every device in VLAN 333 is getting an IP address with 10.130.x.x. So the VLAN ID “333” is the same at every school but the DHCP scope and default gateway has it’s own address. So the device is getting the VLAN 333 at every location but another IP address. It’s very simple.

It’s not working if all schools are connected via Layer2 so VLAN333 can’t be a “standalone VLAN” at each geographical location.

Ask me any questions, I will try to help you.

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