Network Configuration (netconf)

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

Charter
Last Modified: 2010-01-12

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: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/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.

The NETCONF notification specification has been finished now as well.

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).

Note: The schema-advertisement material has been merged into the
NETCONF monitoring document based on WG consensus.

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.

5. NETCONF default handling: NETCONF today does not define whether
default values should be returned by the server in replies
to requests for reading configuration and state data. Different
clients have different needs to receive or not to receive
default data. The NETCONF working group will produce a
standards-track RFC defining a mechanism that allows
NETCONF clients to control whether default data is returned
by the netconf server.

6. NETCONF implementations have shown that the specification in RFC4741
is not 100% clear and has lead to different interpretations and
implementations.
Also some errors have been uncovered. So the WG will do an rfc4741bis
with
following constraints:

- bug fixes are to be done
- clarifications can be done
- extensions can be done only when needed to fix bugs
or inconsistencies (i.e. we are not doing a NETCONF V2)
- The work can be started based on the discussion in IETF #73 (see
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/08nov/slides/netconf-3.pdf).

Note: A technical errata has been posted on rfc4742. If the work on
rfc4741bis uncovers any additional fixes/clarifications that need
to be made to rfc4742, the WG may consider to also do a rfc4742bis
as part of this work-item.

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:

- NETCONF Notification content
- 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 NETCONF Monitoring

Done -00 draft for Fine Grain Locking

Done -00 draft for NETCONF over TLS

Done -00 draft for Schema Advertisement

Done Early Review of client authentication approach (for NETCONF
over TLS) with the security community at IETF 71

Done WG Last Call on NETCONF Monitoring after IETF72

Done WG Last Call on NETCONF over TLS after IETF72

Done WG Last Call on Fine Grain Locking after IETF72

Done Send Partial Locking to IESG for consideration as Proposed
Standards

Done Initial WG draft for with-defaults capability

Done Initial WG draft for rfc4741bis

Done WG Last Call on NETCONF Monitoring after IETF73

Done Submit first WG draft for rfc4742bis

Mar 2010 WG Last Call on rfc4741bis

Mar 2010 WG Last Call on with-defaults

Mar 2010 Send NETCONF monitoring to IESG for approval as Proposed
Standard

Mar 2010 WG Last Call for rfc4742bis

Jun 2010 rfc4741bis to IESG for considerations as Proposed Standard

Jun 2010 with-defaults capability to IESG for considerations as Proposed
Standard

Jun 2010 Send rfc4742bis to IESG for consideration as proposed standard.

Internet-Drafts:

Posted Revised I-D Title <Filename>
------ ------- --------------------------------------------
Jan 2008 Jun 2010 <draft-ietf-netconf-monitoring-14.txt>
YANG Module for NETCONF Monitoring

Feb 2009 May 2010 <draft-ietf-netconf-with-defaults-08.txt>
With-defaults capability for NETCONF

Mar 2009 Feb 2010 <draft-ietf-netconf-4741bis-02.txt>
Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)

Jan 2010 Jun 2010 <draft-ietf-netconf-rfc4742bis-01.txt>
Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure Shell
(SSH)

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)

RFC5277 PS Jul 2008 NETCONF Event Notifications

RFC5539 PS May 2009 NETCONF Over Transport Layer Security (TLS)

RFC5717 PS Dec 2009 Partial Lock Remote Procedure Call (RPC) for NETCONF