Patent ID: 8069473

Claim:
A method to grant a supplicant access to a data communication network, said supplicant having associated a Medium Access Control address and being coupled to an ingress port of an authenticator of said data communication network, said method comprises: transmitting an authentication request by said authenticator to an authentication server being coupled thereto; and making by said authentication server an authentication decision based upon predefined rules and conditions; and transmitting by said authentication server to said authenticator an authentication reply that comprises a result of said authentication decision, characterized in that said method further comprises developing by said authentication server a registration memory (MEM) that comprises entries whereby an entry comprises an association between a Medium Access Control address of a granted supplicant and an authenticated ingress port for said granted supplicant that already received a grant to access an allowed data communication network via said authenticated ingress port; and that said predefined rules and conditions comprises a first controlling step of controlling said registration memory if there exists a first previous entry that comprises a first association between said Medium Access Control address of said supplicant and said ingress port of said authenticator, wherein in the event that said first previous entry does not exist, said method further comprises: a second controlling step of controlling said registration memory if there exists a second previous entry that comprises a second association between said Medium Access Control address of said supplicant with another ingress port, wherein the first controlling step and the second controlling step are different operations.