Network Configuration (netconf) Charter




Network Configuration (netconf)


In addition to this official charter maintained by the IETF Secretariat, there 
is additional information about this working group on the Web at:

       Additional NETCONF Web Page

 
Last Modified: 2008-01-24 
Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/netconf 

Chair(s):
Bert Wijnen <bertietf@bwijnen.net> 


Mehmet Ersue <mehmet.ersue@nsn.com> 


Operations and Management Area Director(s):
Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com> 

Ronald Bonica <rbonica@juniper.net> 

Operations and Management Area Advisor:
Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com> 

Technical Advisor(s):
Charlie Kaufman <charliek@microsoft.com> 

Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: netconf@ops.ietf.org
To Subscribe: netconf-request@ops.ietf.org
In Body: in msg body: subscribe
Archive: https://ops.ietf.org/lists/netconf

Description of Working Group:
Charlie Kaufman 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 so 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 support for asynchronous notifications. 

The NETCONF protocol is using XML for data encoding purposes, because 
XML is a widely deployed standard which is supported by a large number 
of applications. 

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 

The initial work started in 2003 and has already been completed and was 
restricted to following items: 

  a) NETCONF Protocol Specification, which defines the operational model,
     protocol operations, transaction model, data model requirements,
     security requirements, and transport layer requirements. 
  b) NETCONF over SSH Specification: Implementation Mandatory, 
  c) NETCONF over BEEP Specification: Implementation Optional,
  d) 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. 

  e) NETCONF Notification Specification, which defines mechanisms that
     provide an asynchronous message notification delivery service for
     the NETCONF protocol.  NETCONF Notification is an optional
     capability built on top of the base NETCONF definition and
     provides the capabilities and operations necessary to support
     this service.

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

1. Fine-grain locking: The base NETCONF protocol only provides a lock
   for the entire configuration datastore, which is not deemed to meet
   important operational and security requirements. The NETCONF working
   group will produce a standards-track RFC specifying a mechanism for
   fine-grain locking of the NETCONF configuration datastore. 

2. NETCONF monitoring: It is considered best practice for IETF working
   groups to include management of their protocols within the scope of
   the solution they are providing. The NETCONF working group will
   produce a standards-track RFC with mechanisms allowing NETCONF
   itself to be used to monitor some aspects of NETCONF operation. 

3. Schema advertisement: Currently the NETCONF protocol is able to
   advertise which protocol features are supported on a particular
   netconf-capable device. However, there is currently no way to discover
   which XML Schema are supported on the device. The NETCONF working
   group will produce a standards-track RFC with mechanisms making this
   discovery possible (this item may be merged with "NETCONF monitoring"
   into a single document). 

4. NETCONF over TLS: Based on implementation experience there is a
   need for a standards track document to define NETCONF over TLS as an
   optional transport for the NETCONF protocol.

The following items have been identified as important but are currently
not considered in scope for re-chartering and may be candidates for work
when there is community consensus to take them on: 

- General improvements to the base protocol 
- Access Control requirements 
- NETCONF access to SMI-based MIB data


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 
Done	  Update charter 
Done	  Submit first version of NETCONF Notifications document 
Done	  Begin WGLC of NETCONF Notifications document 
Done	  Submit final version of NETCONF Notifications document to IESG
          for consideration as Proposed Standard 
Done	  -00 draft for fine Grain Locking 
Done	  -00 draft for NETCONF over TLS 
Done	  -00 draft for NETCONF Monitoring 
Feb 2008  -00 draft for Schema Advertisement 
Mar 2008  Early Review of client authentication approach (for NETCONF over
          TLS) with the security community at IETF 71 
Aug 2008  WG Last Call on NETCONF Monitoring after IETF72 
Aug 2008  WG Last Call on Schema Advertisement after IETF72 
Aug 2008  WG Last Call on Fine Grain Locking after IETF72 
Aug 2008  WG Last Call on NETCONF over TLS after IETF72 
Aug 2008  Send four documents to the IESG for consideration as proposed
          standards

Internet-Drafts:
NETCONF Event Notifications (80759 bytes)
NETCONF over TLS (18287 bytes)
Partial Lock RPC for NETCONF (20876 bytes)
NETCONF Monitoring Schema (20785 bytes)

Request For Comments:
NETCONF Configuration Protocol (RFC 4741) (173914 bytes) 
Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH) (RFC 4742) 
(17807 bytes) 
Using the NETCONF Protocol over Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP) (RFC 
4744) (19287 bytes) 
Using the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Over the Simple Object Access 
Protocol (SOAP) (RFC 4743) (39734 bytes) 


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