[Netconf] Draft Charter Proposal for NETCONF WG

["Mehmet Ersue" <[e-mail]>]

Dear NETCONF WG,

 

please find below the draft charter proposal the co-chairs have prepared for
your review.

Please send your comments to NETCONF maillist by March 10, 2017.

 

Thanks,

Mehmet & Mahesh

Draft Charter for NETCONF WG

Configuration of networks of devices has become a critical requirement for
operators in today's highly interconnected networks. Large and small
operators alike have developed their own mechanisms or have used vendor
specific mechanisms to transfer configuration data to and from a device and
to examine 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 protocol (RFC 6241) provides mechanisms to install, manipulate,
and delete the configuration of network devices. NETCONF is based on the
secure transport (SSH is mandatory to implement while TLS is an optional
transport). The NETCONF protocol is data modeling language independent, but
YANG (RFC 7950) is the recommended NETCONF modeling language, which
introduces advanced language features for configuration management. 

NETCONF WG recently finalized the development of RESTCONF protocol (RFC
8040) which provides an interface over HTTPs for accessing data defined in
YANG. RESTCONF is based on the capabilities and uses the datastore concepts
defined in the NETCONF protocol specification. In support of RESTCONF the
YANG-Patch (RFC XXYY) mechanism has been provided for applying patches to
configuration datastores. The YANG Module Library (RFC 7895) provides
information about all YANG modules used by a network management server.  

Last but not least NETCONF (RFC XXYY) and RESTCONF Call Home (RFC XXYY) have
been developed which enable a server to initiate a secure connection to a
NETCONF or RESTCONF client respectively. 

 

In the current phase of NETCONF's incremental development the workgroup will
focus on following items:

1. Finalize the YANG data module for a system-level keystore mechanism, that
can be used to hold onto asymmetric private keys and certificates that are
trusted by the system advertising support for this module. Based on the
known dependencies this draft has the highest priority for the WG.

2. Finalize Server and Client Configuration YANG modules for both NETCONF
and RESTCONF as well as the Client and Server Models for SSH and TLS. 

3. Finalize the Zero-touch provisioning for NETCONF or RESTCONF-based
Management as a technique to establish a secure network management
relationship between a newly delivered network device configured with just
its factory default settings, and the Network Management System)

4. Provide a revised version of RFC 6536 (NETCONF Access Control Model) by
adding support for RESTCONF and the YANG 1.1. constructs like "action" and
the "notification" statements. 

5. Provide a set of documents enabling advanced notification/subscription
capabilities, which gracefully co-exist in a deployment of RFC 5277. The new
capabilities include e.g. transport independence, multiple dynamic and
configured subscriptions in a transport session. RFC 5277 will be obsoleted
in parallel to the publication of the new document set. Following
specifications will be addressed:

*	Protocol-neutral notification framework, i.e., explaining the
concepts of subscriptions, filters, subscription state notifications,
replay, etc. and defining the associated YANG data model, RPCs, etc.
*	Definition of notifications sent over NETCONF and how YANG
notifications are encoded in XML and JSON. Include considerations for
parallel support / implementation compatibility with RFC-5277.
*	Definition of notifications sent over RESTCONF and HTTP2 and how
YANG notifications are encoded in XML and JSON. Include specifics of
call-home and heartbeat for subscriptions.
*	The subscription and push mechanism for YANG datastores allowing
subscriber applications to request updates from a YANG datastore. 

6. Revise the current NETCONF datastore concept as a protocol- and modeling
language-independent standard as part of the network configuration
framework. Use the datastore solution proposal in
draft-ietf-netmod-revised-datastores as its basis. Will be used as a
normative reference in protocol specifications.

7. Provide a revision for the NETCONF and RESTCONF protocols building on the
revised NETCONF datastore concept. Bug fixing will be done and potential
extensions will be added. Provide guidance on how to adapt and use YANG with
NETCONF and RESCONF protocols. NETCONF XML Encoding Rules from RFC 7950 will
be moved to RFC6241bis.

Based on the implementation, deployment experience and interoperability
testing, the WG aims to produce a NETCONF status report in a later  stage.
The result may be clarifications for NETCONF RFCs and addressing any
reported errata.

Milestones 

Mar 2017         WGLC for Zero-touch configuration mechanism

Apr 2017         Submit Zero-touch configuration to AD/IESG for
consideration as Proposed Standard 

            

May 2017        WGLC for system-level keystore mechanism

June 2017        Submit keystore mechanism to AD/IESG for consideration as
Proposed Standard 

            

May 2017        WGLC for Server and Client models for NETCONF and RESTCONF

June 2017        Submit Server and Client Configuration models to AD/IESG
for consideration as Proposed Standard 

            

May 2017        WGLC for Client and Server Models for SSH and TLS

June 2017        Submit Client and Server Models for SSH and TLS to AD/IESG
for consideration as Proposed Standard 

            

June 2017        WGLC for RFC 6536bis (NETCONF Access Control Model) 

July 2017         Submit RFC 6536bis to AD/IESG for consideration as
Proposed Standard

            

June 2017        WGLC for advanced Notification/Subscription specifications 

July 2017         Submit Notification/Subscription specifications to AD/IESG
for consideration as Proposed Standard

            

Aug 2017         WGLC for generic NETCONF datastore concept 

Aug 2017         Submit NETCONF datastore concept to AD/IESG for
consideration as Proposed Standard

            

Sep 2017          WGLC for NETCONF and RESTCONF bis documents

Oct 2017          Submit to NETCONF and RESTCONF bis documents AD/IESG for
consideration as Proposed Standard