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:

       Addiotional NETCONF Web Page

Last Modified: 2008-02-07

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

Chair(s):

  • Bert Wijnen <bertietf@bwijnen.net>

  • Mehmet Ersue <mehmet.ersue@nsn.com>

    Operations and Management Area Director(s):

  • Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com>
  • Ronald Bonica <rbonica@juniper.net>

    Operations and Management Area Advisor:

  • Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com>

    Technical Advisor(s):

  • Charlie Kaufman <charliek@microsoft.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:

    Charlie Kaufman 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.

    A second phase of incremental development of NETCONF will include the
    following items:

    1. Fine-grain locking: The base NETCONF protocol only provides a lock
    for the entire configuration datastore, which is not deemed to meet
    important operational and security requirements. The NETCONF working
    group will produce a standards-track RFC specifying a mechanism for
    fine-grain locking of the NETCONF configuration datastore.

    (The initial draft will be based on
    draft-lengyel-ngo-partial-lock-00.txt barring additional contributions
    from the community.)

    2. NETCONF monitoring: It is considered best practice for IETF working
    groups to include management of their protocols within the scope of
    the solution they are providing. NETCONF does not provide this
    capability. The NETCONF working group will produce a standards-track
    RFC with mechanisms allowing NETCONF itself to be used to monitor some
    aspects of NETCONF operation.

    (The initial draft will be based on
    draft-chisholm-netconf-monitoring-00.txt barring additional
    contributions from the community.)

    3. Schema advertisement: Currently the NETCONF protocol is able to
    advertise which protocol features are supported on a particular
    netconf-capable device. However, there is currently no way to discover
    which XML Schema are supported on the device. The NETCONF working
    group will produce a standards-track RFC with mechanisms making this
    discovery possible.

    This item may be merged with "NETCONF monitoring" into a single
    document.

    (The initial draft will be based on
    draft-scott-netconf-schema-query-00.txt barring additional
    contributions from the community.)

    4. NETCONF over TLS - based on implementation experience there is a
    need for a standards track document to define NETCONF over TLS as an
    optional transport for NETCONF

    (The initial draft will be based on
    draft-badra-tls-netconf-04.txt barring additional contributions from
    the community.)


    The following are currently not considered in scope for re-chartering
    at this time, but may be candidates for work when there is community
    consensus to take them on. Individual submissions are being
    encouraged.

    o Access Control requirements
    o General improvements to the base protocol
    o NETCONF access to SMI-based MIB data o The Bill Fenner problem:
    Address real or perceived issue that "giving SSH for NETCONF gives
    full SSH access to the box"

    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
    Dec 2007  -00 draft for NETCONF Monitoring
    Dec 2007  -00 draft for Schema Advertisement
    Dec 2007  -00 draft for Fine Grain Locking
    Dec 2007  -00 draft for NETCONF over TLS
    Mar 2008  Early Review of client authentication approach (for NETCONF over TLS) with the security community at IETF 71
    Aug 2008  WG Last Call on NETCONF Monitoring after IETF72
    Aug 2008  WG Last Call on Schema Advertisement after IETF72
    Aug 2008  WG Last Call on Fine Grain Locking after IETF72
    Aug 2008  WG Last Call on NETCONF over TLS after IETF72
    Aug 2008  Send four documents to the IESG for consideration as proposed standards

    Internet-Drafts:

    NETCONF Event Notifications (80759 bytes)
    NETCONF over TLS (18287 bytes)
    Partial Lock RPC for NETCONF (20876 bytes)
    NETCONF Monitoring Schema (20785 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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