Re: ISMS working group

Hi Eliot,

I have, of course, read the draft that you cited below, but the term 
"call home" is not defined or used in that draft...

The document does discuss the concept that either end of the SNMP 
exchange could initiate the BEEP connection at the transport level, 
but I don't see that it explains anywhere how/when/why a command 
responder would _decide_ (or even know how) to contact a command 
requestor and/or how a command responder could find a command 
requestor if it were not at a fixed, globally addressable location.

IMO, there is a lot more to building a system that is capable of SNMP 
initiation in both directions than simply having a mechanism to 
set-up the transport connection from the command responder to the 
command generator.  It would also be possible to set-up an SSH 
connection from either end, but I don't see how that even begins to 
offer the benefits that you've attributed to "call home".

None of this seems very material to the ISMS discussion, though...

Today SNMP (whether it is running over UDP or TCP) doesn't have the 
call home feature.  Do you really think it is reasonable to tie the 
addition of that feature to the definition of a new security 
mechanism for the existing SNMP protocol?  If so, why?

IMO, we need to try to do our work in manageable chunks in the right 
groups/areas.  A security area working group working on a new 
security mechanism for the existing SNMP model is one chunk.  Perhaps 
an OPS area WG working on an optional SNMP call home mechanism is 
another...?  I don't see how the level of change/disruption to the 
vendor community is substantially affected by whether these two 
separate mechanisms are defined in one IETF working group or two.

Margaret

At 2:52 PM +0200 9/12/05, Eliot Lear wrote:
>Margaret Wasserman wrote:
>>  If you really believe that this solution is needed, I think you would do
>>  best to write a draft and _then_ try to get it adopted by an appropriate
>>  WG.
>
>I (amongst others) *did*.  draft-kaushik-isms-btsm-01.txt.  What had
>been missing up until this point was an SSH draft.  And the working
>group developed consensus on this non-existent draft.  You've got to be
>impressed.
>
>Eliot

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