802.1X authentication

.1X is a generic authentication scheme that uses PPP like packets over ethernet. It's als called EAP. It's used to authenticate systems, and put them after authentication on the right network (authorization). Depending on the hardware and configuration this usually means that you go from no-access to full access. There is a package called wpa_supplicant that does exactly that for linux.

Call for testers

If you have some affinity with linux, it would be nice to have some test results ;-). You can use the binaries from debian. Choose the mipsel architecture.

Notes

Browsing through the source list, I've found that wpa-supplicant is also on that list. So I think that 802.1X is just a question of a bit harder to configure.