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: 2009-02-03

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@ietf.org
    To Subscribe: netconf-request@ietf.org
    In Body: in msg body: subscribe
    Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/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 so 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 support for asynchronous notifications.

    The NETCONF protocol is using XML for data encoding purposes, because
    XML is a widely deployed standard which is supported by a large number
    of applications.

    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

    The initial work started in 2003 and has already been completed and was
    restricted to following items:

      a) NETCONF Protocol Specification, which defines the operational model,
        protocol operations, transaction model, data model requirements,
        security requirements, and transport layer requirements.
      b) NETCONF over SSH Specification: Implementation Mandatory,
      c) NETCONF over BEEP Specification: Implementation Optional,
      d) 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.

      e) NETCONF Notification Specification, which defines mechanisms that
        provide an asynchronous message notification delivery service for
        the NETCONF protocol.  NETCONF Notification is an optional
        capability built on top of the base NETCONF definition and
        provides the capabilities and operations necessary to support
        this service.

      The NETCONF notification specification has been finished now as well.

    In the current phase of the incremental development of NETCONF the
    workgroup will focus on 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.

    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. 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.

    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).

      Note: The schema-advertisement material has been merged into the
      NETCONF monitoring document based on WG consensus.

    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 the NETCONF protocol.

    5. NETCONF default handling: NETCONF today does not define whether
      default values should be returned by the server in replies
      to requests for reading configuration and state data. Different
      clients have different needs to receive or not to receive
      default data. The NETCONF working group will produce a
      standards-track RFC defining a mechanism that allows
      NETCONF clients to control whether default data is returned
      by the netconf server.

    6. NETCONF implementations have shown that the specification in RFC4741
      is not 100% clear and has lead to different interpretations and
    implementations.
      Also some errors have been uncovered. So the WG will do an rfc4741bis
    with
      following constraints:

        - bug fixes are to be done
        - clarifications can be done
        - extensions can be done only when needed to fix bugs
          or inconsistencies (i.e. we are not doing a NETCONF V2)
        - The work can be started based on the discussion in IETF #73 (see
            http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/08nov/slides/netconf-3.pdf).

      Note: A technical errata has been posted on rfc4742. If the work on
      rfc4741bis uncovers any additional fixes/clarifications that need
      to be made to rfc4742, the WG may consider to also do a rfc4742bis
      as part of this work-item.

    The following items have been identified as important but are currently
    not considered in scope for re-chartering and may be candidates for work
    when there is community consensus to take them on:

    - NETCONF Notification content
    - Access Control requirements
    - NETCONF access to SMI-based MIB data

    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
    Done  Submit final version of NETCONF Notifications document to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standard
    Done  -00 draft for NETCONF Monitoring
    Done  -00 draft for Fine Grain Locking
    Done  -00 draft for NETCONF over TLS
    Done  -00 draft for Schema Advertisement
    Done  Early Review of client authentication approach (for NETCONF over TLS) with the security community at IETF 71
    Done  WG Last Call on NETCONF Monitoring after IETF72
    Done  WG Last Call on NETCONF over TLS after IETF72
    Dec 2008  WG Last Call on Fine Grain Locking after IETF72
    Dec 2008  Send Partial Locking to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standards
    Jan 2009  Initial WG draft for with-defaults capability
    Feb 2009  Initial WG draft for rfc4741bis
    Mar 2009  WG Last Call on NETCONF Monitoring after IETF73
    Apr 2009  WG Last Call on rfc4741bis
    Apr 2009  WG Last Call on with-defaults
    Jun 2009  rfc4741bis to IESG for considerations as Proposed Standard
    Jun 2009  with-defaults capability to IESG for considerations as Proposed Standard

    Internet-Drafts:

    Partial Lock RPC for NETCONF (52334 bytes)
    NETCONF Monitoring Schema (67952 bytes)
    With-defaults capability for NETCONF (20461 bytes)
    NETCONF Configuration Protocol (177287 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)
    NETCONF Event Notifications (RFC 5277) (70878 bytes)
    NETCONF Over Transport Layer Security (TLS) (RFC 5539) (16073 bytes)
    IETF Secretariat - Please send questions, comments, and/or suggestions to ietf-web@ietf.org.

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