fyi: July minutes for TNFS WG

[Fred Glover <[e-mail]>]

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            IETF/TSIG Trusted NFS Working Group
                  July '92 Meeting Summary




Working Group Chair (and minutes): Fred Glover


Attendees:

          Dave Borman     Cray Research
          Fran Fadden     DEC
          Owen Gallagher
          Fred Glover     DEC
          Andy LaiHP
          Sharon Lewis
          Bill Middlecamp Cray Research
          Dick Newton     Harris
          Sam Nicholson
          Carl Smith      Sun Microsystems, Inc.
          Tom TalpeyOpen Software Foundation
          Charlie Watt    SecureWare

1.  IETF/TSIG TNFS Working Group Meeting Summary

1.1.  Meeting Summary

The TNFS working group met for 3 sessions  during  the  IETF
July meeting.  We:

     o    presented an overview and status of the TNFS work-
          ing  group during the first session for those par-
          ticipating for the first time

     o    reviewed the final modifications to the TNFS docu-
          ment (TNFS-001.2.02) during the second session

     o    reviewed implementation status and  issues  during
          the third session

In addition, Fred presented an overview of the TNFS  working
group  achievements  and  current status during the Thursday
afternoon IETF plenary.

1.1.1.  TNFS Working Group Status and Summary

During the first TNFS session, Fred presented an overview of
the  TNFS  working group effort, current status, and current
set of documentation.  Dave Borman, our Area  Director,  was
present,  and  helped  us  position  our  documents.  We are
presenting the TNFS document as  a  candidate  for  proposed
standard  RFC.  We  will  plan  to present the token mapping



*** IETF/TSIG TNFS Working Group - 07/92 Meeting Summary ***





                           - 2 -


document as a (new) prototype RFC,  and  the  implementation
and  administrative  documents  as  informational RFCs.  The
other TNFS working group documents,  (interoperability  test
plan,  tnfs.h,  ...) will not be submitted as RFCs, but will
continue to be maintained within the TNFS archive.

1.1.2.  TNFS Document Review

The IETF TNFS document has been available  for  comments  in
the  IETF Draft directory and TNFS archive since July, 1991.
During the July meeting, the TNFS working group reviewed the
current  TNFS document for any final edits prior to request-
ing the transition of its status to proposed RFC draft:

     o    We agreed to add one additional flag to the access
          protocol operation, STAT, which would request per-
          mission to "stat" the requested  file.  Since  the
          full  set of attributes are returned with most all
          procedure calls, there  is  a  question  of  which
          attributes  a  given  client should be able to see
          from the set of cached attributes.  By adding STAT
          to  our  access  procedure, and by maintaining per
          process cached attributes, the client will be able
          to  present  an appropriate set of attributes to a
          requesting application from the cache.

     o    We agreed to change the name of the SETLABEL  pro-
          cedure  to  the  SETNAMELABEL procedure.  This new
          procedure name reflects the intended  use  of  the
          procedure  (i.e.  to  modify the label of the file
          name only; the SETATTR procedure is used to modify
          the label of the file).

The document will be updated to reflect these  changes,  and
placed  in  both  the TNFS archive and IETF draft directory.
Fred will then contact our IETF Area Director, Dave  Borman,
to  indicate  that  the document is ready to be reviewed for
transition to RFC Proposed Standard status.

1.1.3.  Implementation Status, Issues.

The working group reviewed the progress of current implemen-
tation  efforts.   One  implementation  now  conforms to the
current TNFS specification,  and  several  others  are  very
close.   We  reviewed  TNFS test plan, and discussed several
upcoming opportunities for interoperability testing:

     o    the  September  TSIG  meeting   hosted   by   Cray
          Research:  this  may  be too early; we will "poll"
          via email during late August to determine if  this
          is a possibility

     o    a November west coast site: Carl  Smith  and  Fred
          Glover   will  investigate  possible  test  sites;



*** IETF/TSIG TNFS Working Group - 07/92 Meeting Summary ***





                           - 3 -


          November  was  identified  as  a  more   realistic
          timeframe  for  the  completion  of the other TNFS
          implementations.

     o    the 1993 Connectathon: no date exists for this  at
          present,  but  this  event  is usually held during
          February or March; many of the TNFS working  group
          member's  companies already participate in Connec-
          tathon, so this is another good possibility.

     o    the spring TSIG meeting: it  would  be  convenient
          from  a  testing  perspective if this meeting were
          held during/near the  time  of  Connectathon,  but
          this  would  still  be  a  good  possibility  with
          respect to timeframe

Interoperability testing is an important milestone  in  sup-
porting  our goal to promote the TNFS specification to Draft
Standard.  Our test plan, a documented set  of  "non-mapped"
security attributes for testing, and an update of the tnfs.h
file, describing all of the TNFS procedures and data  struc-
tures  are  available in the TSIG/IETF archive to facilitate
the development of additional implementations.

1.2.  Next Meeting

Since the TNFS document is now being proposed for  promotion
to  Proposed  Standard,  the TNFS working group will plan to
meet next in conjunction with our interoperability  testing.
This  date  will  be  identified via email.  We will plan to
review updates  of  the  TKM  specification,  implementation
guide, and administrative guide via email.

























*** IETF/TSIG TNFS Working Group - 07/92 Meeting Summary ***