UPDATED: WG Action: RECHARTER: Network Configuration (netconf)

[The IESG <[e-mail]>]

The charter of the Network Configuration (netconf) working group in the
Operations and Management Area of the IETF has been updated. For additional
information, please contact the Area Directors or the working group Chairs.

+++

Network Configuration (netconf)
================================

Current Status: Active Working Group

Chair(s):
Simon Leinen <[e-mail]>
Andy Bierman <[e-mail]>

Operations and Management Area Director(s):
Bert Wijnen <[e-mail]>
David Kessens <[e-mail]>

Operations and Management Area Advisor:
Bert Wijnen <[e-mail]>

Technical Advisor(s):
Wesley Hardaker <[e-mail]>

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Description of Working Group:

Wes Hardaker is Technical Advisor for Security Matters

Configuration of networks of devices has become a critical requirement
for operators in today's highly interoperable networks. Operators from
large to small have developed their own mechanisms or used vendor
specific mechanisms to transfer configuration data to and from a
device, and for examining device state information which may impact
the configuration. Each of these mechanisms may be different in various
aspects, such as session establishment, user authentication,
configuration data exchange, and error responses.

The Netconf Working Group is chartered to produce a protocol suitable
for network configuration, with the following characteristics:

- Provides retrieval mechanisms which can differentiate between
configuration data and non-configuration data
- Is extensible enough that vendors will provide access to all
configuration data on the device using a single protocol
- Has a programmatic interface (avoids screen scraping and
formatting-related changes between releases)
- Uses a textual data representation, that can be easily
manipulated using non-specialized text manipulation tools.
- Supports integration with existing user authentication methods
- Supports integration with existing configuration database systems
- Supports network wide configuration transactions (with features
such as locking and rollback capability)
- Is as transport-independent as possible
- Provides the following support for asynchronous notifications:
- Specify the <hello> message (capability exchange) details to
support notifications.
- Specify the application mapping details to support notifications.
- Specify the protocol syntax and semantics of a notification message.
- Specify or select a notification content information model.
- Specify a mechanism for controlling the delivery (turn on/off)
of notifications during a session.
- Specify a mechanism for selectively receiving a configurable
subset of all possible notification types.

The Netconf protocol will use XML for data encoding purposes,
because XML is a widely deployed standard which is supported
by a large number of applications. XML also supports hierarchical data
structures.

The Netconf protocol should be independent of the data definition
language and data models used to describe configuration and state
data.

However, the authorization model used in the protocol is dependent on
the data model. Although these issues must be fully addressed to
develop standard data models, only a small part of this work will be
initially addressed. This group will specify requirements for standard
data models in order to fully support the Netconf protocol, such as:

- identification of principals, such as user names or distinguished 
names
- mechanism to distinguish configuration from non-configuration data
- XML namespace conventions
- XML usage guidelines

It should be possible to transport the Netconf protocol using several
different protocols. The group will select at least one suitable
transport mechanism, and define a mapping for the selected protocol(s).

The initial work (has completed) and was restricted to the following
items:

- Netconf Protocol Specification, which defines the operational
model, protocol operations, transaction model, data model
requirements, security requirements, and transport layer
requirements.

- Netconf over SSH Specification: Implementation Mandatory;
Netconf over BEEP Specification: Implementation Optional;
Netconf over SOAP Specification: Implementation Optional;
These documents define how the Netconf protocol is used
with each transport protocol selected by the working group, and
how it meets the security and transport layer requirements
of the Netconf Protocol Specification.

Additional Notification work (as described above) will now be
addressed since the initial work has been completed.

An individual submission Internet Draft has been proposed to the WG
as the starting point for the Notification work. The WG shall adopt
the document identified as 'draft-chisholm-netconf-event-01.txt' as
the starting point for this work.

Goals and Milestones:
Done    Working Group formed  
Done    Submit initial Netconf Protocol draft  
Done    Submit initial Netconf over (transport-TBD) draft  
Done    Begin Working Group Last Call for the Netconf Protocol draft  
Done    Begin Working Group Last Call for the Netconf over (transport-TBD) draft
  
Done    Submit final version of the Netconf Protocol draft to the IESG  
Done    Submit final version of the Netconf over SOAP draft to the IESG  
Done    Submit final version of the Netconf over BEEP draft to the IESG  
Done    Submit final version of the Netconf over SSH draft to the IESG  
Dec 2005    Update charter  
Jan 2006    Submit first version of NETCONF Notifications document  
Sep 2006    Begin WGLC of NETCONF Notifications document  
Dec 2006    Submit final version of NETCONF Notifications document to IESG for
consideration as Proposed Standard  


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