Abstract: A service category associates a set of authenticators and a set of authentication and authorization policies. When an authenticator attempts to connect the network, the service category for such authenticator determined and the authentication and authorization policies applied. A feature of the present invention is that these policies are segmented into several sub-policies to support multiple services and apply different authentication and authorization policies for each type of service. These sub-policies are a tunnel policy, a credential validation policy, in inner tunnel policy and an authorization policy. Successful negotiation of each policy allows the authenticator to connect a network.

Abstract: Context-based network security is provided for streamlined access control over a computer network and components on the computer network. More particularly, methods, instructions on computer-readable media and systems are provided for collecting network context information about a client computer system connecting to the computer network, making the network context information available to various components on the computer network, and using the network context information to control the client computer system's (or a client application executing thereon) access to one or more network resources.

Abstract: A service category associates a set of authenticators and a set of authentication and authorization policies. When an authenticator attempts to connect the network, the service category for such authenticator determined and the authentication and authorization policies applied. A feature of the present invention is that these policies are segmented into several sub-policies to support multiple services and apply different authentication and authorization policies for each type of service. These sub-policies are a tunnel policy, a credential validation policy, in inner tunnel policy and an authorization policy. Successful negotiation of each policy allows the authenticator to connect a network.