Network Configuration (netconf)

In addition to this official charter maintained by the IETF Secretariat, there is additional information about this working group on the Web at:

       Additional NETCONF Web Page

Last Modified: 2007-03-08

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/netconf

Chair(s):

  • Simon Leinen <simon@switch.ch>

  • Andy Bierman <ietf@andybierman.com>

    Operations and Management Area Director(s):

  • Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com>
  • David Kessens <david.kessens@nokia.com>

    Operations and Management Area Advisor:

  • Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com>

    Technical Advisor(s):

  • Wesley Hardaker <hardaker@tislabs.com>

    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 <hello> 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
    Done  Begin WGLC of NETCONF Notifications document
    Dec 2006  Submit final version of NETCONF Notifications document to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standard

    Internet-Drafts:

    NETCONF Event Notifications (57043 bytes)

    Request For Comments:

    NETCONF Configuration Protocol (RFC 4741) (173914 bytes)
    Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH) (RFC 4742) (17807 bytes)
    Using the NETCONF Protocol over Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP) (RFC 4744) (19287 bytes)
    Using the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) (RFC 4743) (39734 bytes)
    IETF Secretariat - Please send questions, comments, and/or suggestions to ietf-web@ietf.org.

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