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 <[email protected]>


Mehmet Ersue <[email protected]>


Operations and Management Area Director(s):
Dan Romascanu <[email protected]>

Ronald Bonica <[email protected]>

Operations and Management Area Advisor:
Dan Romascanu <[email protected]>

Technical Advisor(s):
Charlie Kaufman <[email protected]>

Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: [email protected]
To Subscribe: [email protected]
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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