Network access control system PacketFence 2.0 released
PacketFence is a free and open source network access control (NAC) system. It can be used to effectively secure networks – from small to very large heterogeneous networks. PacketFence has been deployed in production environments where thousands of users are involved – on wired and wireless networks.
PacketFence provides an impressive list of supported features. Among them, there are:
- Registration of network components through a captive portal
- Automatic isolation, if desired, of unwanted devices such as Apple iPod, Sony PlayStation, wireless access points and more
- Instant stopping of computer worms or virus propagation
- Blocking of attacks on your servers or other network components
- Compliance for computers present on your network (software installed, particular configurations, etc.)
- PacketFence is an unobtrusive solution that works with equipment from many vendors (wired or wireless) such as Cisco, Nortel, Hewlett-Packard, Enterasys, Accton/Edge-corE, 3Com, D-Link, Intel, Dell and many more.
With more than a year of development, PacketFence 2.0 features numerous features such as unification of the wireless, wired 802.1X and wired MAC authentication configurations, VoIP device authorization over RADIUS, proxy interception, passthroughs support during the registration process or when being quarantined, bulk node import support and new ‘pending’ node status allowing a wide range of captive portal workflows with approval processes.
Futhermore, support for new switches (Juniper EX Series and SMC TigerStack 6128) and wireless controllers (HP ProCurve MSM710 and Meru Networks MC3000) was added. Many other enhancements were added in this release, together with bugfixes and a major overhaul of the documentation to simplify PacketFence deployment.