LACP and 802.1X

RaphaelL
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

LACP and 802.1X

Hi ,

 

I have never tried this setup.

 

Is it possible to have a device ( let's say a phone ) , connected to port X and port Y in the same switch/stack and have an Access Policy on these ports ? 

 

End goal is to have redundancy on a IP phone , lose one of the 2 connections and avoid the phone to re-do the full 802.1X auth on the other port and not losing the call. 

 

I couldn't find anything in the MS doc that says that 802.1X and LACP are not compatible , but I'm unsure... 

4 Replies 4
VivekT
Getting noticed

Hello,

 

802.1X and LACP are not natively compatible because LACP aggregates physical ports into a single logical link.

If you require redundancy for an IP phone while avoiding call drops,

 

consider:


Using MAC Authentication Bypass (MAB) on the redundant port.
Leveraging phones with built-in redundancy to switch internally between active links.
Exploring non-802.1X security measures like VLAN ACLs or port security.
Ultimately, achieving both 802.1X enforcement and seamless redundancy without call disruption may require trade-offs, as strict 802.1X is not designed for multi-port redundancy scenarios.

PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

I have never tried it either, but I doubt it would work.

 

Would using a WiFi enabled device be an option?  Then it can failover between different APs on different switches.

RaphaelL
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Sadly no , the only option is wired. Those are "specials" IP phones for traders.

PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Now I know we are talking about a higher acceptable price bracket ...

 

I have seen these passive Ethernet fail-over devices.  They have an Ethernet in, and two Ethernet's out.  The phone would plug into the "in".  The out's plug into separate switches.  As long as the device gets a link from out1, it uses that otherwise it passively fails over to out2.

 

I have never used such gear myself, but a quick Google found this option:

1+1 Ethernet Failover / Ethernet AB Fallback Equipment | Valiant

 

Personally if it was me, I think I would be tempted to look at something like a Cisco Catalyst C9404R.

Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series Switch Data Sheet - Cisco

It has dual supervisors, dual everything.  If you have a supervisor fail, the port automatically fails over to the standby supervisor.  It supports doing hitless upgrades.

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