Suggested IETF 126 Sessions for Getting Familiar with New Topics

If you are a new IETF participant, or if you are an experienced participant who would like to get familiar with a new topic, there are many sessions at the IETF 126 Vienna meeting that will include interesting discussions. Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions in particular may be interesting as BoFs are one way for potential new work to be discussed in the IETF community. A full agenda is available on the IETF Datatracker. Additional information about and links to session agendas will be added to this page as they are available. 

If you are new to the IETF or just new to IETF meetings, please be sure to consider registering for the expanded New Participant Program. Once you’ve registered for the IETF 126 meeting, additional sign up is required via your participant dashboard for this free full-day program on Sunday, 19 July 2026 at the meeting venue and via remote participation.

Updated 2026-06-28

This post will be updated as more information for IETF 126 is available. Of particular note, agendas and other materials for sessions are posted very close to agenda times so please check the IETF Datatracker for the latest information.

Meeting week schedule

Note: All times are CEST (UTC +2)

SATURDAY, 18 July 2026

10:30-11:00

IETF Hackathon Kickoff (separate free registration required)
Grand Klimt Hall 1
The IETF Hackathon is a two-day event where participants develop and test that their code can interoperate with others, or where new code is written, often to implement recent IETF work. The kickoff meeting describes all the projects that will go on this week; they are also already listed on the Hackathon wiki. Feel free to join an existing team to squash some bugs! You do not need to bring code; you can simply join a topic of interest and contribute to existing code, help with testing or in many other ways.

SUNDAY, 19 July 2026

09:30-15:30

New Participants’ Program
Park Suite 8
This free of charge full-day program on Sunday, 19 July 2026 will take place at the meeting venue. After registering for the IETF 126 meeting, additional sign up is required via your participant dashboard. Participation in all sessions will be available via Meetecho. See the expanded New Participant Program webpage for details about all the sessions.

10:00-12:00

Internet Engineering and Planning Group (IEPG)
Park Suite 7
The IEPG is an informal gathering that meets on the Sunday prior to IETF meetings. The IEPG sessions cover a wide range of operator and operational topics, and often include real-world measurements, discussions around deployment issues, as well as more academic research type presentations. Unlike IETF working groups, it does not work on or generate Internet-Drafts.

13:00-15:00

Hackathon Results Presentations
Grand Klimt Hall 1
IETF Hackathon participants brief the group about what they accomplished.

16:00-17:00

New Participants' Quick Connections (Open to new participants only)
Selleny’s Bar
The Quick Connections is a simple and effective way for new participants to be introduced to a variety of experienced IETF participants—often working group (WG) chairs, Area Directors,and Internet Architecture Board (IAB) members —who can help you get more involved in your areas of interest. Pre-registration is required and available on your participant dashboard after you have registered for the IETF 126 meeting.

17:00-19:00

Welcome Reception
Grand Park Hall 1/2/3
This is the official opening session of the IETF meeting week. Come by and meet some new people with drinks and free snacks.

18:00-20:00

HotRFC Lightning Talks
Grand Klimt Hall 2
See rapid-fire presentations about new standards work or new research topics, updates on cross-area IETF work and relevant technologies, and industry advances that could affect IETF participants.

MONDAY, 20 July 2026

09:00-11:00 Monday Session I

ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (anrw)
Grand Park Hall 1
The ACM, IRTF & Internet Society Applied Networking Research Workshops (ANRW) are day-long events that provide a forum for researchers, vendors, network operators and the Internet standards community to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research. NOTE: Separate registration is required; see the webpage for registration details.

Dispatch (dispatch)
Grand Park Hall 3
This is a joint session of ART and SEC Dispatch. Run in DISPATCH-style (see RFC7957), it is intended to consider proposals for new work in the in the ART and SEC Areas and if the work is appropriate for the IETF and there is sufficient interest, to identify or help create an appropriate venue for the work.

11:30-12:30 Monday Session II

ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (anrw)
Grand Park Hall 1
The ACM, IRTF & Internet Society Applied Networking Research Workshops (ANRW) are day-long events that provide a forum for researchers, vendors, network operators and the Internet standards community to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research.. NOTE: Separate registration is required; see the webpage for registration details.

14:00-16:00 Monday Session III

ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (anrw)
Grand Park Hall 1
The ACM, IRTF & Internet Society Applied Networking Research Workshops (ANRW) are day-long events that provide a forum for researchers, vendors, network operators and the Internet standards community to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research.. NOTE: Separate registration is required; see the webpage for registration details.

16:30-18:00 Monday Session IV

ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (anrw)
Grand Park Hall 1
The ACM, IRTF & Internet Society Applied Networking Research Workshops (ANRW) are day-long events that provide a forum for researchers, vendors, network operators and the Internet standards community to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research.. NOTE: Separate registration is required; see the webpage for registration details.

Protocol for Transposed Transactions over HTTP (ptth) BoF
Grand Park Hall 3
Since a first BoF held at IETF 123, proponents have prepared a proposed charter for a PTTH working group to establish a uniform and secure method for swapping HTTP server and client roles in an interoperable manner. This would be used, for example, when a server is only intended to be accessed directly by a small number of clients, the server knows how to reach these approved clients, and the server is not widely accessible by arbitrary clients due to security or routing constraints. Currently, there are multiple proprietary or vendor-specific deployed solutions for each of these use cases.

Domain Name System Operations (dnsop)
Grand Park Hall 2
The DNS Operations working group develops guidelines for the operation of DNS software and services and for the administration of DNS zones. These guidelines provide technical information relating to the implementation of the DNS protocol by the operators and administrators of DNS zones.

18:30-19:30

Hackdemo Happy Hour
Park Ensemble
A social gathering to highlight work accomplished during the preceding IETF Hackathon.

19:00-21:00

New Participants’ Dinner (Open to new participants only)
Lenz Restaurant
This dinner is a chance to meet other newcomers to IETF meetings and is organized by the Secretariat. Please note that pre-registration is required, and a US$15 fee will be charged. More information is available on the New Participants webpage.

TUESDAY, 21 July 2026

09:00-10:30 Tuesday Session I

IAB Open Meeting (iabopen)
Grand Park Hall 3
In this session, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) provides a detailed update on their technical programs, workshops, and current work-in-process architectural guidance documents, and seeks community input.

11:00-12:30 Tuesday Session II

Transport and Services Working Group (tsvwg)
Grand Park Hall 1
The Transport and Services Working Group (TSVWG) is the forum for development and publication of RFCs dealing with transport-layer topics that are not in scope of an existing working group or do not justify the formation of a new working group.

14:00-16:00 Tuesday Session III

Discovery of Agents, Workloads, and Named entities (dawn) BoF
Grand Park Hall 3
This BoF seeks to build consensus around establishing a Working Group to develop requirements notably including but not limited to AI agent to agent, and protocol solutions for an automated, decentralised and interoperable discovery mechanism to meet—at scale—the requirements of distributed processing environments which depend on the interaction between components that do not have this pre-configured capability. 

16:30-18:00 Tuesday Session IV

Continuous Updating and Ratcheting for Rekeying Encrypted Network Transport (current) BoF
Grand Park Hall 3
The aim of this BoF is to build consensus for establishing a Working Group to define a two-party security protocol that uses Messaging Layer Security (MLS) for the key management. MLS key management provides asynchronous key updates, forward secrecy (FS), and post-compromise security (PCS). In addition, MLS supports asynchronous communication and both traditional cryptography and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). Further, the formal analysis conducted on the MLS protocol provides confidence in the design.

18:15-20:15

IETF Board Game Night
Lenz Restaurant
Please join us for an evening of board games, light snacks, and non-alcoholic beverages. Some board games and puzzles will be provided, though bringing your own game to share is encouraged. We offer games that vary in difficulty and game play length.

WEDNESDAY, 22 July 2026

09:00-11:00 Wednesday Session I

Dynamic Multi-agent Secured Collaboration (dmsc) BoF
Grand Park Hall 3
This BoF will explore interoperable protocols and mechanisms for AI Agent Gateway-mediated collaboration, including agent capability exposure, request forwarding, coordination, synchronization, policy control, observability, and secure communication. DMSC will profile existing and evolving mechanisms that are defined elsewhere, identifying any gaps and the potential benefits of a formal definition of an AI agent gateway model to enable dynamic collaboration among AI agents.

11:30-12:30 Wednesday Session II

General Area Dispatch (gendispatch)
Grand Park Hall 3
Discussion of items being proposed for work in the General (GEN) Area. GEN Area work typically includes  proposals for changes or improvements to the IETF process and process documents. GENDISPATCH is chartered to identify, or to help create, an appropriate venue for new work. GENDISPATCH will not consider any technical standardization work.

Web and Internet Transport Area Open Meeting (witarea)
Grand Park Hall 2
The WITAREA open meeting provides an overview of the WIT Area activities and presentations covering deployments and sharing operational experience.

IP Performance Measurement (ippm) and Benchmarking WGs (bmwg)
Grand Klimt Hall 1
This joint WG session will cover topics such as IOAM, STAMP Extensions, and benchmarking methods for power, source address validation, and AI Fabrics.

14:00-15:30 Wednesday Session III

Technology Deep Dive: CBOR and CDDL
Grand Park Hall 3
Join this session for an approachable update on the ongoing work around CBOR and CDDL, the tools used for compression in Internet of Things (IoT) and other constrained networks and devices.

Internet Area Working Group (intarea)
Grand Klimt Hall 1
The Internet Area Working Group acts primarily as a forum for discussing far-ranging topics that affect the entire area. Such topics include, for instance, address space issues, basic IP layer functionality, and architectural questions. The group also serves as a forum to distribute information about ongoing activities in the area, create a shared understanding of the challenges and goals for the area, and to enable coordination.

16:00-18:00 Wednesday Session IV

18:30-20:30

IETF Plenary
Grand Park Hall 1/2/3
The plenary is the one meeting addressed to the entire IETF community. There are leadership reports about the state of the IETF, as well as “open mic” sessions for community feedback on a broad range of topics.

THURSDAY, 23 July 2026

09:00-11:00 Thursday Session I

Proposed Sustainability and the Internet Proposed Research Group (sustain)
Park Suite 8

This Research Group explores long-term research challenges in developing and operating an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable Internet, from a networking perspective. It provides a venue for discussion, collaboration and development of Internet research on sustainability with a critical view on evidence and data, ensuring the trustworthiness of research results and their transparent dissemination.

IP Performance Measurement (ippm) and Benchmarking WGs (bmwg)
Grand Klimt Hall 2
This joint WG session will cover topics such as IOAM, STAMP Extensions, and benchmarking methods for power, source address validation, and AI Fabrics.

11:30-12:30 Thursday Session II

12:45-13:45

Host Speaker Series: The State of eBPF 2026: From Kernel Tooling to Strategic Platform
Grand Klimt Hall 2
This session, presented by Bill Mulligan of Cisco, provides a comprehensive update on the latest technical and strategic advancements shaping the eBPF landscape. eBPF has undergone a radical transformation in the last decade, evolving from a specialized tool for packet filtering into the fundamental substrate for reprogramming the Linux kernel and becoming an IETF standard. As we enter 2026, the community is navigating a critical shift from managing individual programs to orchestrating complex, multi-tenant eBPF environments at scale. 

14:00-16:00 Thursday Session III

Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Open Meeting (irtfopen)
Grand Park Hall 3
News and updates from the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), along with talks by recent Applied Networking Research Prize winners.

16:30-18:30 Thursday Session IV

Measurement and Analysis for Protocols Research Group (maprg)
Grand Klimt Hall 2
MAPRG aims to bridge the gap between Internet standards and measurement communities. It supports exchange of measurement-derived insight, discussion of  techniques and best practices for measurement relevant to protocol engineering and network operations, collaborations to share data supporting these measurements, and a "landing pad" for the Internet measurement community to introduce its efforts to the IETF. 

Routing Area Working Group (rtgwg)
Grand Park Hall 2
This session is a venue to discuss, evaluate, support, and develop proposals for new work in the Routing Area. This working group also works on fast-reroute, YANG models, and other general routing topics.

Research and Analysis of Standard-setting Processes Research Group (rasprg)
Park Suite 6
The Research and Analysis of the Standard-Setting Processes Research Group (RASPRG) aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, policy makers, standards users, and standards developers to study standardization processes across SDOs, with a particular focus on Internet standard-setting in the IETF. The research is aimed at informing the comprehension of standardization processes and policies, and possibly providing tools and insights.

18:45-19:45 

New Participants’ Social Hour (Open to new participants only)
Lenz Restaurant
This gathering is a great opportunity for new participants to share their experiences and discuss topics of interest with IETF leadership. More information is available on the New Participants webpage.

FRIDAY, 24 July 2026

09:00-11:00 Friday Session I

11:30-12:30 Friday Session II

Domain Name System Operations (dnsop)
Grand Park Hall 2
The DNS Operations working group develops guidelines for the operation of DNS software and services and for the administration of DNS zones. These guidelines provide technical information relating to the implementation of the DNS protocol by the operators and administrators of DNS zones.

14:00-15:30 Friday Session III

Security Area Open Meeting (saag)
Grand Klimt Hall 2
The Security Area Advisory Group (SAAG) is an open forum of the Security Area to discuss security and privacy issues. It typically meets during the face-to-face IETF meeting. SAAG is not a working group and does not adopt or publish documents.

16:00-17:30 Friday Session III

17:30-18:30

Farewell Reception
Grand Park Hall 1/2/3

ENDS