GÉANTLink

Suite of EAP supplicants for Microsoft Windows - IEEE 802.1X clients for enterprise network authentication

Features

• Integrates into Windows seamlessly
• Wired and wireless network support

Authentication methods

• EAP-TTLS with the following inner methods:
  • PAP
  • MSCHAPv2
  • EAP-MSCHAPv2
  • EAP-GTC: Challenge/Response and Password authentication modes
  • System-installed EAP method chaining (experimental)

Security

• Microsoft Windows Credential Manager stored user credentials
• User credentials can be shared between different network profiles, regardless of their connection: wired or wireless
• Encrypted EapHost inter-process communication
• TLS:
  • Separate trusted root CA list
  • Configurable list of accepted server names
  • Post-authentication CRL check

Diagnostics

• Reporting to Event Log channels: Operational and Analytic verbosity
• Real-time event monitoring utility

User interface

• Customizable helpdesk contact information
• Lockable network profile configuration

Deployment

• Released as multi-lingual x86, x64, and ARM64 MSI packages; Group Policy deployment supported
• MsiUseFeature utility for GÉANTLink install state testing (for embedding GÉANTLink into other setup packages)
• CredWrite utility for automated user credential import to Credential Manager
• WLANManager utility to allow network profile configuration dialog shortcuts

Supported operating systems

• Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008
• Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows 8 Desktop, Windows Server 2012
• Windows 8.1 Desktop, Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows 10 Desktop, Windows Server 2016

Download

Binaries are available for download here.

Building

Building Environment Requirements

• Microsoft Windows Vista or later
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2017
• msgfmt.exe from gettext; Hint: Poedit contains up-to-date binary Win32 compiled gettext-utilities. Install it and add GettextTools\bin folder to the system path.
• sed.exe and grep.exe
• MsiDb.Exe and other command line utilities for MSI packaging distributed as a part of Microsoft Windows SDK (installed with Visual Studio). Add SDK's Bin folder to the system path.

wxWidgets

GÉANTLink is using wxWidgets static libraries. Since upstream wxWidgets libraries don't support ARM64 yet, a clone with ARM64 support was prepared at GitHub.

Compiling wxWidgets x86 static libraries

1. Start x86 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2017
2. Change working folder to build\msw
3. Run: nmake /f makefile.vc /ls RUNTIME_LIBS=static SHARED=0 COMPILER_VERSION=141
4. Run: nmake /f makefile.vc /ls RUNTIME_LIBS=static SHARED=0 COMPILER_VERSION=141 BUILD=release

Compiling wxWidgets x64 static libraries

1. Start x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2017
2. Change working folder to build\msw
3. Run: nmake /f makefile.vc /ls RUNTIME_LIBS=static SHARED=0 COMPILER_VERSION=141 TARGET_CPU=X64
4. Run: nmake /f makefile.vc /ls RUNTIME_LIBS=static SHARED=0 COMPILER_VERSION=141 TARGET_CPU=X64 BUILD=release

Compiling wxWidgets ARM64 static libraries

1. Start command prompt
2. Change working folder to build\msw
3. Run: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsamd64_arm64.bat"
4. Run: nmake /f makefile.vc /ls RUNTIME_LIBS=static SHARED=0 COMPILER_VERSION=141 TARGET_CPU=ARM64 USE_OPENGL=0
5. Run: nmake /f makefile.vc /ls RUNTIME_LIBS=static SHARED=0 COMPILER_VERSION=141 TARGET_CPU=ARM64 USE_OPENGL=0 BUILD=release

Specifying wxWidgets path

GÉANTLink compilation references wxWidgets libraries using WXWIN environment variable. Please set it to wxWidgets folder (i.e. C:\SDK\wxWidgets).

Digital Signing of Build Outputs

In order to have the build process digitally sign output files, one should provide the following:

1. A signing certificate installed in the current user’s certificate store.
2. The following variables in the environment:

• ManifestCertificateThumbprint - set the value to certificate’s SHA1 thumbprint (hexadecimal, without spaces, i.e. bc0d8da45f9eeefcbe4e334e1fc262804df88d7e).
• ManifestTimestampRFC3161Url - set the value to URL used to perform RFC3161 timestamp signature (i.e. http://sha256timestamp.ws.symantec.com/sha256/timestamp). In order to perform timestamp signing successfully, the computer running the build should be online and able to access this URL.

Please note that only Release builds are configured for timestamp signing. Debug configurations do not attempt to timestamp sign the resulting DLL and EXE files in order to speed up the building process and enable offline building.

Building

Building in Visual Studio IDE

GÉANTLink has some submodules. When cloning Git repository, make sure to use --recursive Git switch to clone submodules too. Example: git clone --recursive "https://github.com/Amebis/GEANTLink.git" "C:\Projects\GEANTLink"

After clone is complete, grant Users local group read and execute permissions to output subfolder (when working folder is private). This allows EapHost service to load GÉANTLink's DLL, and Event Viewer to display GÉANTLink events.

GÉANTLink can be build and debugged opening GEANTLink.sln in Visual C++ IDE.

Before one can attempt to debug EAP DLLs, you should run nmake register from an elevated command prompt. See Building in command line chapter below.

Next, one must configure a network profile actually using GÉANTLink for the authentication.

GÉANTLink EAP modules are divided into two DLLs: backend (i.e. EAPTTLS.dll) and GUI (i.e. EAPTTLSUI.dll).

Backend DLL

The backend DLL is loaded by Eap3Host.exe process when connecting to the network. One approach to debug the module is to start Visual C++ elevated, open GEANTLink.sln, and attach to the running Eap3Host.exe process.

On initial connection attempt Eap3Host.exe will load the DLL and will not release it until EapHost service is restarted. To release our DLL (i.e. for rebuild) you have to restart EapHost service manually or run nmake register again.

To debug early life of our backend DLL, uncomment Sleep(10000) in DllMain() of the module, and set breakpoints. This should give you plenty of time to catch emerging Eap3Host.exe process and attach the debugger to it before our DLL starts servicing authentication.

GUI DLL

The GUI DLL is loaded by DllHost.exe process on XML profile configuration import/export and when interactive user interface is required.

A few seconds after desired function call has finished, DllHost.exe terminates and releases the DLL.

To debug early life of our GUI DLL, uncomment Sleep(10000) in DllMain() of the module, and set breakpoints. This should give you plenty of time to attach the debugger to DllHost.exe process before our DLL starts.

Building in command line

Open x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2017 for building.

Use Microsoft NMAKE to build the project.

Command	Explanation
nmake Clean	Deletes all intermediate and output files.
nmake Register	Builds a debug version of project, registers DLLs, and adds Start Menu shortcuts. For testing and development purposes only! Requires elevated command prompt.
nmake Unregister	Removes Start Menu shortcuts, unregisters DLLs. For testing development purposes only! Requires elevated command prompt.
nmake Setup	Builds a release version of project and release MSI setup files. The resulting files can be found in output\Setup folder.
nmake SetupDebug	Builds a debug version of project and debug MSI setup files. The resulting files can be found in output\Setup folder.

The /ls flag can be appended to the commands above to reduce NMAKE’s verbosity. You can combine multiple targets (i.e. nmake Unregister Clean). Please, see NMAKE reference for further reading.

Translating into your language

GÉANTLink is fully localizable. We kindly invite you to help translating it on Transifex.