CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Larry J. Blunk/Merit Minutes of the Terminal Server Accounting and Authentication (TERMACCT) The meeting began with a presentation of the Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting services currently provided in Merit terminal servers, and how these features are lacking in commercial terminal server equipment. Authentication was discussed and there seemed to be a consensus that Kerberos would be the way to go. There was some question about whether terminal servers with limited resources would be able to implement Kerberos (such as, how much ROM would it take?). Authorization was mentioned as being a difficult issue. Kerberos V5 has hooks for authorization, but currently provides no definitions. OSF DCE apparently provides some authorization capabilities using Kerberos V5, but it is not clear how suitable it would be for terminal servers. Accounting and billing issues were discussed. Among the issues discussed were the need to define accounting and billing variables. There also may need to be interaction between the authorization and accounting systems (to deny authorization for someone who has exceeded a usage quota, for example). It was mentioned that the cost, in resources and real dollars, of accounting needs to be weighed against the actual value of the service. There was much interest in the notion of a ``connection manager'' which could provide a common or customizable user interface. Such a manager would be run on a host machine and would likely interact with the authentication, authorization, and accounting services. The consensus of the BOF participants seemed to be that Merit should come up with a requirements document for further discussion. It could then be determined whether a new working group should be formed. Attendees Steve Alexander stevea@i88.isc.com James Barnes barnes@xylogics.com Charles Bazaar bazaar@emulex.com Larry Blunk ljb@merit.edu Philip Budne phil@shiva.com Stephen Crocker crocker@tis.com Erik Fair fair@apple.com Barbara Fraser byf@cert.sei.cmu.edu Jack Hahn hahn@sura.net Neil Haller nmh@bellcore.com Ellen Hoffman esh@merit.edu Borka Jerman-Blazic jerman-blazic@ijs.ac.mail.yu Charles Kaufman kaufman@dsmail.enet.dec.com 1 Mark Knopper mak@merit.edu Kenneth Laube laube@bbn.com Mark Lewis mlewis@telebit.com John Linn linn@zendia.enet.dec.com Brian Lloyd brian@ray.lloyd.com Glenn McGregor ghm@merit.edu Dave Monachello dave@pluto.dss.com J. Bradford Parker brad@cayman.com Brad Passwaters bjp@sura.net Marsha Perrott mlp+@andrew.cmu.edu Allan Rubens acr@merit.edu Jeffrey Schiller jis@mit.edu Robert Shirey shirey@mitre.org William Simpson Bill_Simpson@um.cc.umich.edu Frank Slaughter fgs@shiva.com Eric Smith Richard Smith smiddy@pluto.dss.com Michael St. Johns stjohns@umd5.umd.edu Theodore Tso tytso@mit.edu Wengyik Yeong yeongw@psi.com 2