topic Thanks so much for your in Network Access Control

Interface Descriptions with 802.1x

sn3 — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 06:06:03 GMT

How do interface descriptions work with 802.1x? Will the descriptions remain blank? Will all ports participating in NAC get a generic description? Is it possible to dynamically configure the port description based on the device that is connected to the interface? Other?

Thanks in advance!

Interface descriptions are

Marvin Rhoads — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 11:06:52 GMT

Interface descriptions are not affected by 802.1x. Generally 802.1x uses RADIUS A-V (Attribute-Value) pairs to send down changes to the network access device. There's not an A-V pair for interface description that I'm aware of.

Thanks so much for your

sn3 — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 05:19:23 GMT

Thanks so much for your response! Is there available guidance/standards on interface descriptions for ports participating in 802.1x?

There's no official guidance

Marvin Rhoads — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:41:55 GMT

There's no official guidance or best practice recommendation that I've ever seen. It's very much a local preference whether or not to even use interface descriptions.

Personally I use them only for a quick visual check for what a given interface should be. They can be misleading though as they are only as good as your knowledge of and control over the physical connections to your devices.

That's one of the reasons we use ISE whereby the identity of what's connected to a given interface is better ascertained by looking at the Accounting record of that interface.