Network Configuration (netconf) ------------------------------- Charter Last Modified: 2006-03-24 Current Status: Active Working Group Chair(s): Simon Leinen Andy Bierman Operations and Management Area Director(s): Dan Romascanu David Kessens Operations and Management Area Advisor: Dan Romascanu Technical Advisor(s): Wesley Hardaker Mailing Lists: General Discussion:netconf@ops.ietf.org To Subscribe: netconf-request@ops.ietf.org In Body: in msg body: subscribe Archive: https://ops.ietf.org/lists/netconf Description of Working Group: Wes Hardaker 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 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 the following support for asynchronous notifications: - Specify the message (capability exchange) details to support notifications. - Specify the application mapping details to support notifications. - Specify the protocol syntax and semantics of a notification message. - Specify or select a notification content information model. - Specify a mechanism for controlling the delivery (turn on/off) of notifications during a session. - Specify a mechanism for selectively receiving a configurable subset of all possible notification types. The Netconf protocol will use XML for data encoding purposes, because XML is a widely deployed standard which is supported by a large number of applications. XML also supports hierarchical data structures. 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 It should be possible to transport the Netconf protocol using several different protocols. The group will select at least one suitable transport mechanism, and define a mapping for the selected protocol(s). The initial work (has completed) and was restricted to the following items: - Netconf Protocol Specification, which defines the operational model, protocol operations, transaction model, data model requirements, security requirements, and transport layer requirements. - Netconf over SSH Specification: Implementation Mandatory; Netconf over BEEP Specification: Implementation Optional; 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. Additional Notification work (as described above) will now be addressed since the initial work has been completed. An individual submission Internet Draft has been proposed to the WG as the starting point for the Notification work. The WG shall adopt the document identified as 'draft-chisholm-netconf-event-01.txt' as the starting point for this work. 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 Sep 2006 Begin WGLC of NETCONF Notifications document Dec 2006 Submit final version of NETCONF Notifications document to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standard Internet-Drafts: Posted Revised I-D Title ------ ------- -------------------------------------------- Aug 2003 Mar 2006 NETCONF Configuration Protocol Oct 2003 Mar 2006 Using the NETCONF Protocol over Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP) Oct 2003 Mar 2006 Using the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Oct 2003 Mar 2006 Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH) Jan 2006 Sep 2006 NETCONF Event Notifications Request For Comments: None to date.