2.1.19 Domain Registration Services BOF (domreg)

Current Meeting Report

Minutes of the DOMREG BOF
49th IETF San Diego, CA 14 December 2000
Reported by Scott Hollenbeck <shollenbeck@verisign.com>

The goals and scope of the BOF were described as follows:

This BOF will assess interest in forming a working group to develop a generic registry-registrar protocol for use in shared registration systems. The goal of the BOF is two-fold:

1. To determine if a working group should be formed to develop such a protocol, and

2. To produce draft goals and an outline for a charter if there is interest in forming a working group.

The scope of the BOF will be limited to technical issues associated with protocol development, including:

- Discussion of existing Internet-Draft requirements for a generic registry-registrar protocol.
- Discussion of interest in forming a working group to develop a generic protocol.
- Presentation of an existing published protocol proposal.
- Working group goal and charter development.

First presentation document reference:
draft-hollenbeck-grrp-reqs-05.txt

The first presentation covered requirements for a generic protocol for use in shared registration systems. The presentation described the how the need for requirements was identified, how the requirements were developed, and the state of the requirements today. At the conclusion of the presentation the question was asked if the attendees felt that the requirements draft represented community consensus, noting that such consensus was apparently reached on the discussion mailing list two months ago. Comments from the floor were generally positive about the state of the requirements, though one speaker suggested some additional text at the beginning of the I-D to note that the requirements were defined for a specific operational model and that other models exist. One speaker was not comfortable with the requirements, though he had not provided any specific concerns to the mailing list. In the end it was agreed that a little more work is needed to finalize the requirements draft before it can be considered complete.

After this presentation the question was asked if there was sufficient problem definition and interest in forming a working group to develop a standards track protocol. After discussion of the anticipated purpose and expected outcome, the clear opinion of the group was "yes".

Second presentation document reference:
draft-hollenbeck-epp-00.txt

The second presentation described a protocol proposal that was developed to meet and exceed the requirements described in the first presentation. The presentation described the problem as more than a domain name registration problem, but as a generic object provisioning problem. XML was shown to provide a way to define a simple base protocol that separates object semantics from the protocol itself. The presentation described a layered approach to manage transport, security, and object provisioning. Comments from the floor were positive, with several people noting that such a general provisioning approach is far more desirable than a narrow domain name registration approach.

The final portion of the BOF was dedicated to brainstorming ideas about the scope and charter of a working group. The first point of agreement was that the focus should not be only on domain name registration, but on the more general problem of object provisioning. A person from the floor volunteered a draft charter, and a few minutes were spent looking at the draft to see if people were generally comfortable with it. There was some debate about the amount of time needed to complete working group tasks, with the general consensus being that people preferred to try to get work items completed as quickly as possible. Some minor changes were made on the floor, and agreement was reached to continue the discussion on a new working group mailing list. It was agreed that both charter development and requirements completion can proceed in parallel, with the charter completion date targeted for 5 January 2001.

The name of the working group mailing list was quickly discussed, and the name "provreg" (for provisioning/registration) was agreed upon. A person agreed to create the list as quickly as possible, and the name was announced to all: ietf-provreg@cafax.se. Subscription requests will be managed by majordomo@cafax.se.

Slides

Extensible Provisioning Protocol
Generic Registry-Registrar Protocol Requirements