Thanks for joining me!  I am creating this as a location to blog without filter and without restriction. This is a work in progress, but I will be bringing my previous blog posts into this site and adding FULL blog entries instead of the limited ones my previous blog was restricted to. So much time … Continue reading The Journey Begins →

When we added a certificate authority (CA) to Cisco's ISE in version 1.3, there was a tremendous interest level from the field.  Companies were looking for this functionality to make BYOD and secure network access from endpoints more secure and there was a LOT of buzz about this functionality. As the guy who flew all … Continue reading Cisco ISE API for Certificate Provisioning →

In ISE 1.0 Cisco introduced an integrated Guest solution with a next-generation RADIUS-based policy server.  That policy server was game-changing, certainly.  Other companies responded to this market changing model by making some very strategic moves with their chess pieces to be similarly positioned. Figure 1 shows an example of the ISE 1.2.x (and below) Sponsor … Continue reading Give me my Attribute mapping back for Sponsor Groups →

I'm amused at how often I hear negative comments about proprietary enhancements from Cisco.  I am one of many (many, many, many) employees of Cisco who is actively involved in standards body organizations, including the IETF.  Many of today's networking standards have started out as proprietary solutions that are available years prior to the standard being complete. … Continue reading Standards for Secure-Network-Access →

I'm sure Cisco would love to be the only network device that its customer have, and to be honest, there are many companies where that is true. However, it is just not the reality of 100% of companies that deploy Cisco ISE or ACS. One item in particular that I am asked about frequently is … Continue reading MAB with Non-Cisco Devices →

I find a few universal truths when mentioning certificates to people. Most people I speak with consider them to be a very secure concept almost without fail. However upon mentioning that I want to talk about certificates: that person's face turns a slightly lighter shade, their eyes get a bit wider, and they have this … Continue reading Simply Put: How Does Certificate-Based Authentication Work? →

I am often asked about support for “Realm Stripping”, albeit mostly by those in the University Space.  It’s an interesting concept, certainly.  The idea is that someone will issue an identity that includes some “routing” information within the identity.  For example, a user may issue a username of: johndoe@somedomain.com.  From that username, the RADIUS server … Continue reading Realm Stripping →

What is DogTag and Why Use It? Dog Tag is an Enterprise-class open source Certificate Authority that Red Hat purchased from AOL back in 2004.  Red Hat opened it up to the open source community in 2008.  Dog Tag supports all aspects of certificate lifecycle management, including key archival, OCSP and smartcard management, and much … Continue reading Using the DogTag CA with ISE 1.2 →

A little less than 1/2 of all Identity Service Engine installations are on VMWare.  Yes it's true.  About 45% of all ISE nodes deployed in this world are Virtual.  What I don't know is:  how many are in production and how many are in a lab. Let me give you another statistic (my own).  When … Continue reading Using VNC for Console Access to ISE (and other) VM’s →

What is a Wildcard Certificate? A wildcard certificate is one that uses a wildcard notation (an asterisk and period before the domain name) and allows the certificate to be shared across multiple hosts in an organization.  An example CN value for a wildcard certificate’s Subject Name would look like the following:  *.company.local If you configure … Continue reading What are WildCard Certificates? And how do I use them with Cisco’s ISE →