Need help with off-standard 802.1x authentication on Linux

[Qian Hong]

Hi all, I'm new to here, so please let me know if get to the wrong list.

I'm a Linux user from China, lot's of Linux users especially student
users like me have great trouble while using Linux, that's the
Internet connection. Many universities here use all kinds of private
off-standard 802.1x authentication for network connection,
unfortunately , those off-standard 802.1x authentication are usually
not supported on Linux. The good news is, some of them now have open
source implement by black-box analysis and disassemble on their close
source Windows client.

The actually questions I would like to get answers here are below:
1. If there is a private off-standard 802.1x authentication protocol
,which is supported by some third party open source client, then will
wpa_supplicant project support it in the future to?
Integrate those off-standard 802.1x protocal in wpa_supplicant will
bring enormous benefits to end users :(1) users can use
network-manager gui to connect to Internet gracefully without command
line skills; (2) A new operating system without 802.1x client in
college campus network is really painful for user, she should connect
to internet to download a 802.1x client first -- if you want to
connect to internet, you must connect to internet first... What a f**k
loop, isn't it? If a Linux distribution ship those off-standard 802.1x
client by default, then there will be more convenience.

If yes, how can we getting involved (maybe as an end user, not a
developer right now)
If no, how does it depend on legal issues and how does it depend on
technical reasons ?

2. If some of private off-standard 802.1x authentication is still
mystery, will  wpa_supplicant developer hack on them?

Here are some examples of private off-standard 802.1x authentication
client (and there open source implement)

H3C INode
Official Website(Chinese) :
http://www.h3c.cn/Service/Document_Center/IP_Management/H3C_iNode/
Third party open source implement: git://github.com/liuqun/njit8021xclient

Ruijie
Official Website: http://www.ruijienetworks.com/
Third party open source implement: http://code.google.com/p/mentohust/

Dr.com
Official Website: http://www.doctorcom.com/en/index.php
Third party open source implement: http://sourceforge.net/projects/drcom-client/

and so on...

Thanks for any suggestions!


-- 
Regards,
Qian Hong
-
Sent from Ubuntu
http://www.ubuntu.com/