Application Configuration Access Protocol (acap)

Last Modified: 2004-03-15

Chair(s):

Chris Newman <cnewman@iplanet.com>
Matt Wall <wall@cyrusoft.com>

Applications Area Director(s):

Ted Hardie <hardie@qualcomm.com>
Scott Hollenbeck <sah@428cobrajet.net>

Applications Area Advisor:

Scott Hollenbeck <sah@428cobrajet.net>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: ietf-acap+@andrew.cmu.edu
To Subscribe: majordomo@lists.andrew.cmu.edu
In Body: subscribe ietf-acap
Archive: anonymous IMAP: cyrus.andrew.cmu.edu:archive.ietf-acap

Description of Working Group:

The goal of this working group is to define, specify, and develop the
Application Configuration Access Protocol as a general access mechanism
for per-user and per-server structured lists of information. In
addition, the Working Group will specify how to use the protocol to
store specific structured lists, initially application configuration
options and addressbooks.

The Application Configuration Access Protocol is a proposed solution to
the problems of client configuration for users of the internet.

Given the increasing prevalence of network access points and rapidly
increasing numbers of users with diverse needs and settings, there is a
phenomenon of internet application users who typically connect from
more than one physical location and/or operating system to use the same
set of internet services and applications. These users must recreate
sets of personal configuration information for each system, session,
and location that they use. This may include information such as
application options and preferences; personal or shared user data such
as addressbooks, bookmarks, or subscription lists; or shared data for
internal client use, such as authorization group lists.

The products of this working group will be:

  * a formal specification for the protocol
  * formal specifications of datasets used by the protocol and related
    extensions to the protocol
  * an RFC intended to move to a Standard in a timely manner
  * a specification for extensibility of the protocol in the form of a
    framework document
  * additional informational and/or experimental RFCs as necessary to
    amplify and/or extend ACAP.

Note on goals and milestones: because the work of the ACAP WG is based
on the previous work done on IMSP, there is justification for a
somewhat more aggressive schedule than is customary.

Goals and Milestones:

Done    Submission of 'ACAP vs. Other Protocols' Informational Document for discussion
Done    Submission of revised proposed WG charter to area directors
Done    Submission of 'ACAP vs. Other Protocols' as Internet Draft
Done    Second internet-draft of ACAP protocol specification
Done    working group meeting at San Jose IETF
Done    Working implementations of client and server library
Done    Additional dataset specifications defined as directed by WG.
Done    Final internet-draft of ACAP protocol submitted to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standard
Done    Meet at Munich IETF. Discussion to include language-based orderings.
Done    Submit remaining dataset class definitions I-D to IESG for considertation as a Proposed Standard.
Dec 00    Submit Final drafts of options, personal addressbook and mediatype dataset classes
Feb 01    Proposed standard recycle of ACAP base spec with bugfixes and possible change to mandatory-to-implement auth mechanism
May 01    Conclude WG.

Internet-Drafts:

ACAP Application Options Dataset Class (24171 bytes)
ACAP Email Personality Dataset Class (33208 bytes)

Request For Comments:

ACAP -- Application Configuration Access Protocol (RFC 2244) (154610 bytes)
Anonymous SASL Mechanism (RFC 2245) (9974 bytes)