Dartmouth College PKI Lab: Greenpass Project


Dartmouth College PKI Lab's Greenpass project has developed a method of delegating access authorization to a restricted network for guests visiting another institution. This process was designed to be similar to a person giving a guest a temporary key to a laboratory for use during their visit.

Access to the private network is assumed to be controlled by 802.1x authentication using EAP-TLS with authorization determined by a Radius server. The Greenpass software permits existing authorized users to delegate access rights to their guests.

These web pages describe how the system is implemented and provide instructions for creating a similar installation.

Sponsors

Principal sponsors include:

This research was also supported in part by NSF (CCR-0209144) and AT&T/Internet2.

Background

Implementing Greenpass

The Greenpass access delegation system is implemented with a wireless network, at least one switch which supports VLANs, a router and two LINUX based servers. The software architecture makes use of a number of standard UNIX services and some open source software components.

Components developed by the Greenpass project implement a delegation server, an introduction cache server, an authorization cache server and modifications to the FreeRadius server's authorization processing. In order to use other Radius implementations where modifcations are not feasible, a Radius proxy has been developed and will be available soon.

Building Greenpass

Instructions on setting up a Greenpass system, including hardware needed, software requirements, and environment configuration, can be found on the Building Greenpass page.

Running Greenpass

Instructions on how to operate a Greenpass system, including "bootstrapping" the system and managing delegations, are detailed on the Running Greenpass page.

Using Greenpass

Instructions for different OS's to connect to a Greenpass protected wireless network.

Modifying Greenpass

The Greenpass source code is intended to be easily modifiable for different installations. Information about where elements are located, and what files control what behavior, is available at the following links.

Details on SDSI/SPKI


[Note: This web site is still "Under Construction"
Contact: sean.smith@dartmouth.edu with suggestions]
Last edited March 28 2006 by KPM