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

Charter
Last Modified: 2011-12-09

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]>
    Benoit Claise  <[email protected]>

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

Technical Advisor(s):
    Tim Polk  <[email protected]>

Mailing Lists:
    General Discussion:[email protected]
    To Subscribe:      [email protected]
        In Body:       in msg body: subscribe
    Archive:           http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/netconf/

Description of Working Group:

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 has produced 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 can 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 an XML-based data representation, that can be easily
  manipulated
  using non-specialized XML manipulation tools.
- Supports integration with existing user authentication methods
- Supports integration with existing configuration database systems
- Supports multiple (e.g. candidate and running) data-stores to
  optimize configuration preparation and activation
- Supports network wide configuration transactions (with features such
  as locking and rollback capability)
- Runs over a secure transport; SSH is mandatory to implement while
  TLS, BEEP, and SOAP are optional transports.
- Provides support for asynchronous notifications.

The NETCONF protocol has been designed independent of the data
modeling language.  The IETF recommends to use YANG as the NETCONF
modeling language, which introduces advanced language features for
configuration management.

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

1. Netconf Access Control Model (NACM) Requirements and Solution.

   There is a need for standard mechanisms to restrict
   NETCONF protocol access for particular users to a pre-
   configured (by operator) subset of all available NETCONF
   operations and content.

   The WG will produce a document which identifies the access
   control requirements specific to the NETCONF protocol, as
   defined in [4741bis].  This document will also provide a
   standard YANG data model which addresses these
   requirements.

   It is possible that the WG will not reach solution consensus
   on every possible requirement identified in the document.
   In this case, it is expected that the solution will evolve
   over time to meet the the remaining unmet requirements.

2. The NETCONF server may want to notify interested clients about
   particular NETCONF protocol/server events.  The WG will work on
   a NETCONF specific YANG module(s) to define suitable
   notifications.

3. As implementation and deployment experience gained with the
   NETCONF monitoring data model, the WG may revise the NETCONF
   monitoring data model to add additional objects that can be used
   to check the status of the server and to discover additional
   information about the server implementation. The WG may choose
   to revise the NETCONF monitoring data model.

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

  Done         WG Last Call on rfc4741bis

  Done         Send with-defaults to IESG for consideration as Proposed
               Standard

  Done         first WG draft (rev 00) on NACM posted

  Done         rfc4741bis to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standard

  Done         Send rfc4742bis to IESG for consideration as proposed Standard

  Done         first WG draft (rev 00) on NETCONF specific YANG modules posted

  Jul 2011       WGLC for NACM document

  Jul 2011       WGLC for NETCONF specific notifications document

  Sep 2011       (if needed last) WGLC for NACM document

  Sep 2011       (if needed last) WGLC for NETCONF specific notifications
               document

  Oct 2011       submit NACM document to IESG for consideration as Proposed
               Standard

  Oct 2011       submit NETCONF specific notifications document to IESG for
               consideration as Proposed Standard


Internet-Drafts:

Posted Revised         I-D Title   <Filename>
------ ------- --------------------------------------------
Sep 2010 Dec 2011   <draft-ietf-netconf-access-control-07.txt>
               Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Access Control Model

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

RFC6022 PS   Oct 2010    YANG Module for NETCONF Monitoring

RFC6241 PS   Jun 2011    Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)

RFC6242 PS   Jun 2011    Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure
                      Shell (SSH)

RFC6243 PS   Jun 2011    With-defaults Capability for NETCONF

RFC6470 PS   Feb 2012    Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Base
                      Notifications