IETF STEERING GROUP (IESG) REPORT FROM THE TELECONFERENCE OCTOBER 17TH, 1991 Reported by: Greg Vaudreuil, IESG Secretary This report contains - Meeting Agenda - Meeting Attendees - Meeting Notes Please contact IESG Secretary Greg Vaudreuil (iesg-secretary@nri.reston.va.us) for more details on any particular topic. Attendees --------- Almquist, Philip / Consultant Borman, David / CRAY Chiappa, Noel Coya, Steve / CNRI Crocker, Dave / DEC Crocker, Steve / TIS Estrada, Susan / CERFnet Gross, Philip / ANS Hinden, Robert / BBN Hobby, Russ / UC-DAVIS Reynolds, Joyce / ISI Stockman, Bernard / SUNET/NORDUnet Vaudreuil, Greg / CNRI Regrets Callon, Ross / DEC Davin, Chuck / MIT Agenda ------ 1) Administrivia - Bash the Agenda - Approval of the Minutes - Approval of unsent minutes (July 30th- Sept 12th) - Next Meeting 2) IAB Report 3) Review of Selected Action Items 4) Protocol Actions - Review of outstanding Protocol Actions - PPP 5) RFC Editor Action - IP over SNA 6) Working Group Actions - Internet School Networking - IP over ATM - Ethernet MIB 7) Tech Management - CIPSO - Distributed Conferencing - Router Requirements Buyers Guide Minutes ------- 1. Administrivia 1.1 Agenda Bashing The Agenda was amended to include several new items 1.2 Approval of the Minutes 1.2.1 Unsent minutes (July 30-September 19th) The announcement of the availability of the minutes was approved by the IESG. Action: Vaudreuil -- Install the IESG minutes in the remote directories and send the announcement of their availability. 1.3 Next Meeting The IESG planned to meet by teleconference October 31st. The agenda will include discussions of technical management topics not covered in this conference. The IESG has been invited to join FARNET Monday night of the IETF for dinner. Arrangements will be made by FARNET. Susan Estrada will serve as liaison for meeting logistics. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send a note to the IAB and IESG inviting them to the FARNET dinner Monday night of the Santa Fe IETF. 2. IAB Meeting Report Phill Gross gave the IESG a brief overview of the IAB meeting held at Interop. This meeting was attended by several IESG members and IETF Working Group chairmen at various times to discuss specific issues. Among the actions discussed by the IAB: The standards process document which has been under development off and on for the past several months was approved. Dave Crocker, one of the original authors discussed this document with the IAB and was satisfied with the edits proposed by the IAB. The only outstanding issues have to do with the relative levels of Applicability Statements (AS) and the corresponding Technical Specifications (TS). Steve Hardcastle-Kille joined the IAB in discussing several of the X.500 documents. All were approved per the IESG recommendation except the "String Encoding of Presentation Address" which with the concurrence of Steve Hardcastle-Kille was suggested as an informational document. The IAB continued work on its charter, a document necessary to the association between the IAB and the Internet Society. While the IESG supports this association, it is concerned that it has not been consulted in this process. ACTION: Gross -- Communicate to the IAB the desire of the IESG to have input into the framework for the association between the IAB and the Internet Society. 3) Review of Action Items (130) Jul 11 [Philip Almquist] Create a finished version of the TOS specification ready to be published as a Proposed Standard, as soon as possible. Continuing. No progress to report. (163) Aug 02 [Noel Chiappa, Bob Hinden] Investigate the progress and direction of the IPLPDN working group and report to the IESG. Continuing. George Clapp has not yet been approached about recharting the working group, however, both Hinden and Chiappa are convinced the group needs to be reformed to deal with the issues if addressing and routing in large Public Data networks, rather than the IP over New-Foo. (222) Sep 19 [Noel Chiappa] Contact the author of the PPP documents and the chairman of the PPP working groups to clarify for the IESG the "lineage" of the current PPP documents with respect to their authorship. This action has been transfered to Vaudreuil, who will shepard the documents through the process. (150) Jul 18 [Steve Coya] Draft a sample, generic letter to be used by corporations to give the IAB control over the future evolution of a particular protocol. Concluded: Coya has sent the letter to the IESG. D. Crocker now has the token to generalize the note. ACTION: D. Crocker -- Do something with the Generic change control lettter. (144) Jul 18 [Steve Crocker] Combine or rationalize the proposed security campaign with the security are plan. Continuing: This important action has been relegated to the low priority que due to other pressing concerns. It was suggested that this action was OBE, but at Crockers request, it will continue to be carried as a "poker". (181) Aug 15 [Russ Hobby, Steve Crocker] Organize an agenda for the Distinguished Name Teleconference. Work with Vaudreuil to schedule an appropriate time. Concluded: This conference was held, and minutes were distributed to the IESG. (202) Sep 05 [Steve Crocker] Work with the author of the Security Information Transfer Protocol to determine the constituency and necessity of this protocol. Report findings to the IESG. Continuing: A new issue over the coordination with the SNMP has emerged, and so Davin will be added to this action. (210) Sep 19 [Chuck Davin, Phill Gross, Dave Crocker] Determine the proper course of action to resolve the new conflict between the SNMP Bridge MIB and the IEEE Source Routing MIB. This action should include sending the liaison letter to the IEEE letter. This action is half completed. The direction has been set, but the letter has not yet been sent to the IEEE. ACTION: Gross -- Secure the necessary IAB buy in and send the Bridge MIB Liason letter to the IEEE. (157) Jul 25 [Phill Gross, Susan Estrada] Explore the need for an operations DNS working group, and if needed, find a chair and write a charter for a DNS operation meeting, where close coordination with the protocol group is explicitly specified. OBE: The efforts to start a operational DNS group have faltered and are no longer being pursued. (203) Sep 05 [Greg Vaudreuil] Send a note to the RFC Editor that the author of the Security Information Transfer Protocol wishes to advance this document though the standards process and has begun a dialogue withthe IETF community. Done. (204) Sep 05 [Greg Vaudreuil] Notify the RFC Editor that the Finger protocol should be republished as a Draft standard with two additional changes mailed earlier to the author and RFC Editor. Done. 3. Protocol Actions 3.1) Point to Point Protocol Greg Vaudreuil discussed the status of the revised PPP documents with Drew Perkins. While Perkins regretted that he not able to contribute to the revision of the PPP protocol, he accepted that the protocol document should continue to evolve with a new editor. ACTION: Vaudreuil: Interact with the authors to get a new version of the document. This new version should prominently acknowledge the contributions of Drew Perkins, and should list the current editor as an editor. 3.2) Review of other protocols 4) RFC Editor actions. 4.1 IP over SNA The IESG reviewed the IP over SNA specification. While this document was not of the quality the IESG normally expects of a protocol specification, it found the subject matter interesting and a possible candidate for standardization. Action: Almquist-- Send a message to the RFC Editor with a technical review of the IP over SNA, and the IESG view on standardization of this work. 5) Working Group Actions 5.1 Internet School Networking (CoSN) The original charter for this working group, K-12 networking, was sent to the IESG-Tech mailing list and received many comments. The content and purpose of the group was soundly endorsed, however the domestic emphasis needed to be clarified. The IESG approved this Working Group with changes to the title and wording. The more general topic of regional Working Groups was briefly discussed, and on first cut the IESG felt that they can be justified, especially in the operations, and User Services areas. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Record the latest version of the Internet School Networking charter and send an announcement to the IETF mailing list. 5.2 IP over ATM (atm) The IESG reviewed the IP over ATM charter and approved its contents and focus. The intended working group product will be an experimental protocol, which may as some point be entered into the standards process. While unusual in the IETF, the IESG endorsed this as proper use of the standards development system. Continuing concern over the interaction between IETF and other standards bodies will be addressed by Phill Gross. Action: Gross -- Converse with George Clapp to confirm that the charter of the IP over ATM working group is properly limited to avoid conflict with other standards bodies. Notify the IESG of the results from this interaction. An ATM presentation is scheduled for the Santa Fe meeting. Tracy Cox of Bellcore is scheduled to give a presentation. This presentation will likely focus on ATM as a common carrier standard, and Hinden, the chair of the IP over ATM working group suggested that a second presentation be scheduled on the use of ATM as a local area network standard. ACTION: Gross -- Explore the possibility of an ATM Mini-Agenda during the Technical Presentation time. This agenda should focus on ATM as both a wide area and a local area networking standard. 5.3 Ethernet MIB Chuck Davin was not present in this teleconference, and so discussion on this item was deferred. 5.4 CIPSO The CIPSO WG met at the regular TSIG meeting this week. There was a bit of concern expressed that the IETF may not be the best forum for continuation of the CIPSO work. It does not appear that this is a widespread feeling, however, it demonstrates the need for building a wider bridge to the TSIG. Three technical issues have arisen for which IESG guidance has been sought. 1) Mike St. Johns wants the protocol to look very much like the DOD IP Security Option. Apparently the rest of the CIPSO WG does not agree. It is unclear whether this is a great or terrible idea. Action: S. Crocker -- Gather opinions from Steve Kent and Vint Cerf on whether CIPSO should look like IPSO. 2) With the new emphasis on manageability of the Internet, it was unclear to S. Crocker and the CIPSO working group whether a MIB is necessary. POSITION: A MIB is not generally required for Proposed Standard Protocols. NOTE: The CIPSO effort is proceeding without a MIB. A MIB will be defined prior to DS. 3) Because CIPSO is an IP level option, it's important that it be engineered for efficient implementation in routers. Critical review of this aspect of the protcol is desirable. ACTION: Chiappa, Borman and Almquist -- Review CIPSO protocol document when it's available and flag any portions which affect basic assumptions about the IP architecture and the Internet infrastructure. S. Crocker will make sure the document is routed to them. 6. Technical Management 6.1 Distributed Conferencing Discussion on the IETF mailing list indicates significant interest in developing production facilities for distributed conferencing. Interop had several demonstrations of Video over the IP network, demonstrating the emergence of technology capable of at least limited use. Several research efforts have been underway for some time and may be ready for re-engineering into a standards based system. Russ Hobby has agreed to hold a BOF to explore the various aspects of distributed conferencing, including shared workspace, real-time audio and video protocols, and the related transport, networking issues. 6.2 Router Requirements Buyers Guide The Router Requirements effort is wrapping up, with the production of a massive requirements document and a handful of smaller explanatory notes. The requirements document is a real complex work, and as such is of limited use of a network user. The idea to write a buyer guide was suggested to translate this quality piece of work into real advise. Recognizing that there ave distinct classes of routers, a guide was envisioned to be a listing of features deemed necessary for a particular class of router, and the requirement level for each of these features. A second document, a "consumers report" listing routers and their conformance was seen to be one of the most useful outputs of such an endeavor. While the "consumers report" was acknowledged to be very valuable, the IESG strongly rejected the notion of the IETF producing such a work. Other organizations such as FARNET may be more willing to tackle such a project. ACTION: Estrada, Gross, Stockman -- Resurface the "guide to Router Requirements" in the Santa Fe ORAD meeting.