Network Configuration (netconf)

Network Configuration (netconf)
-------------------------------

Charter
Last Modified: 2008-02-25

Current Status: Active Working Group

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]>

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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

Dec 2006 Submit final version of NETCONF Notifications document to IESG
for consideration as Proposed Standard

Dec 2007 -00 draft for NETCONF Monitoring

Dec 2007 -00 draft for Schema Advertisement

Dec 2007 -00 draft for Fine Grain Locking

Dec 2007 -00 draft for NETCONF over TLS

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:

Posted Revised I-D Title <Filename>
------ ------- --------------------------------------------
Jan 2006 Feb 2008 <draft-ietf-netconf-notification-12.txt>
NETCONF Event Notifications

Jan 2008 Feb 2008 <draft-ietf-netconf-tls-01.txt>
NETCONF over Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Jan 2008 Feb 2008 <draft-ietf-netconf-partial-lock-01.txt>
Partial Lock RPC for NETCONF

Jan 2008 Feb 2008 <draft-ietf-netconf-monitoring-01.txt>
NETCONF Monitoring Schema

Request For Comments:

RFC Stat Published Title
------- -- ----------- ------------------------------------
RFC4741 PS Dec 2006 NETCONF Configuration Protocol

RFC4742 PS Dec 2006 Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure
Shell (SSH)

RFC4744 PS Dec 2006 Using the NETCONF Protocol over Blocks Extensible
Exchange Protocol (BEEP)

RFC4743 PS Dec 2006 Using the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Over
the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)