EAP-Fail processing

Jouni Malinen j at w1.fi
Wed Sep 3 08:03:20 EDT 2008


On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 04:09:45PM -0700, Chuck Tuffli wrote:
> I was looking into a problem with EAP-Fail and noticed that the
> EAP_RECEIVED state in SM_STEP(EAP) doesn't process rxFail.

It does process rxFailure assuming the EAP method is in a state that
allows EAP-Failure to be processed..

> After
> receiving an EAP-Failure, I would have expected the state machine to go
> to EAP_FAILURE instead of EAP_DISCARD. Does it make sense to add the
> following to the receive processing

It should move to FAILURE state on EAP-Failure, but only if the EAP
method allows this (i.e., methodState != METHOD_CONT and decision !=
DECISION_UNCOND_SUCC). I would guess that the method did not set
methodState to METHOD_MAY_CONT (if it is unclear whether EAP server
could still continue the method) or METHOD_DONE (if it is clear that the
next message from server is either EAP-Success or EAP-Failure).

Forcing this to happen regardless of the methodState variable would be
against the EAP state machine design and I do not think it is necessary
to resolve this case.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA


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