Extensible Authentication Protocol, or EAP, is an authentication framework frequently used in wireless networks and point-to-point connections. EAP is an authentication framework providing for the transport and usage of keying material and parameters generated by EAP methods. There are many methods defined by RFCs and a number of vendor specific methods and new proposals exist. EAP is not a wire protocol; instead it only defines message formats. Each protocol that uses EAP defines a way to encapsulate EAP messages within that protocol's messages.