Use smart card for 802.1x secured WiFi authentication

Question

Hi,
is it possible to use a certificate stored on a USB Security Token for WiFi 802.1x authentication?
I have setup a test environment with all required components (AD, Enterprise CA, NPS, WPA2-Enterprise capable WiFi Access Point, all required certificates, all Server 2012 R2 / Windows 8.1 Pro) and created a user certificate for WPA2-Enterprise secured
WiFi access (802.1x). Everthing works fine as long as the user certificate is stored in the local certificate store of the user's client computer: The user can connect to the WiFi network and the NPS logs show that the user has been authenticated correctly
and granted access.
To test this scenario with a Smart Card (Safenet USB Token), I stored that same user certificate on the token (incl. private key). The Safenet software on the client computer automatically makes the certificate stored on the token available in the local
certificate store as soon as the token has been plugged in (checked via MMC Certificates snap-in). But the certificate can't obviously be used for the desired WiFi authentication: If I try to connect the secured WiFi (the same as in scenario 1) the connection
fails.
As I'm using exactly the same certificate in both scenarios, I don't think there's anything wrong with the settings in the certificate, the NPS or any other infrastructure component. The reason for failure in scenario 2 must be lying somewhere in either
the local client computer configuration or in the Safenet software on the client computer.
I'm very familiar with all the PKI and authentication stuff, but I'm new to smart cards. Are there differences between different types of smart cards and for what purpose one can use them? (USB tokens, chip cards, virtual tokens, etc.?)
Has anybody experience in creating a 802.1x secured WiFi access with smart card based user certificates who could advise?
Thanks + Best Regards
Matt

Answer 1

Hi,
I found some links form technet site which can be helpful in this case
Network access authentication and certificates
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc759575(v=ws.10).aspx
Enable smart card or other certificate authentication
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737336(v=ws.10).aspx
Quote:
Client certificate requirements
With EAP-TLS or PEAP-EAP-TLS, the server accepts the client authentication attempt when the certificate meets the following requirements:
The client certificate is issued by an enterprise CA or mapped to a user or computer account in Active Directory.
The user or computer certificate on the client chains to a trusted root CA, includes the Client Authentication purpose in EKU extensions (the object identifier for Client Authentication is 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2), and fails neither the checks that are performed
by CryptoAPI and specified in the remote access policy nor the Certificate object identifier checks that are specified in IAS remote access policy.
The 802.1X client does not use registry-based certificates that are either smart card-logon or password-protected certificates.
For user certificates, the Subject Alternative Name (SubjectAltName) extension in the certificate contains the user principal name (UPN).
For computer certificates, the Subject Alternative Name (SubjectAltName) extension in the certificate must contain the client's fully qualified domain name (FQDN), which is also called the DNS name
Yolanda Zhu
TechNet Community Support