Filter by topic and date
Suggested IETF 124 Sessions for Getting Familiar with New Topics
9 Oct 2025
These IETF 124 meeting sessions are likely to include discussions and proposals that are accessible to a broad range of Internet technologists whether they are new to the IETF or long-time participants.
If you are a new IETF participant, or if you are an experienced participant who would like to get familiar with a new topic, there are many sessions at the IETF 124 Montreal meeting that will include interesting discussions. Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions in particular may be interesting as BoFs are one way for potential new work to be discussed in the IETF community. A full agenda is available on the IETF Datatracker. Additional information about and links to session agendas will be added to this page as they are available.
If you are new to the IETF or just new to IETF meetings, please be sure to consider registering for the expanded New Participant Program. Once you’ve registered for the IETF 124 meeting, additional sign up is required via your participant dashboard for this free full-day program on Sunday, 2 November 2025 at the meeting venue and via remote participation.
Updated 2025-10-09
This post will be updated as more information for IETF 124 is available. Of particular note, agendas and other materials for sessions are posted very close to agenda times so please check the IETF Datatracker for the latest information.
Note: Times for Saturday, 1 November are in EDT timezone (UTC -4 hours). Times for Sunday, 2 November through Friday, 7 November are in EST (UTC -5).
SATURDAY, 1 November 2025
10:30-11:00
IETF Hackathon Kickoff (separate free registration required)
Centre Ville
The IETF Hackathon is a two-day event where participants develop and test that their code can interoperate with others, or where new code is written, often to implement recent IETF work. The kickoff meeting describes all the projects that will go on this week; they are also already listed on the Hackathon wiki. Feel free to join an existing team to squash some bugs! You do not need to bring code; you can simply join a topic of interest and contribute to existing code, help with testing or in many other ways.
SUNDAY, 2 November 2025
09:00-15:30
New Participants’ Program
Viger
This free of charge full-day program on Sunday, 2 November 2025 will take place at the meeting venue. After registering for the IETF 124 meeting, additional sign up is required via your participant dashboard. Participation in all sessions will be available via Meetecho. See the expanded New Participant Program webpage for details about all the sessions.
10:00-12:00
Internet Engineering and Planning Group (IEPG)
Van Horne
The IEPG is an informal gathering that meets on the Sunday prior to IETF meetings. The IEPG sessions cover a wide range of operator and operational topics, and often include real-world measurements, discussions around deployment issues, as well as more academic research type presentations. Unlike IETF working groups, it does not work on or generate Internet-Drafts.
14:00-16:00
Hackathon Results Presentations
Centre Ville
IETF Hackathon participants brief the group about what they accomplished.
16:00-17:00
New Participants' Quick Connections (Open to new participants only)
Espace 21 Gallerie
The Quick Connections is a simple and effective way for new participants to be introduced to a variety of experienced IETF attendees—often working group (WG) chairs or Area Directors—who can help you get more involved in your areas of interest. Pre-registration is required and available on your participant dashboard after you have registered for the IETF 124 meeting.
17:00-19:00
Welcome Reception
Place du Canada
This is the official opening session of the IETF meeting week. Come by and meet some new people with drinks and free snacks.
18:00-20:00
HotRFC Lightning Talks
Viger
See rapid-fire presentations about new standards work or new research topics, updates on cross-area IETF work and relevant technologies, and industry advances that could affect IETF participants.
MONDAY, 3 November 2025
09:30-11:30 Monday Session I
Dispatch (dispatch)
Place du Canada
This is a joint session of ART and SEC Dispatch. Run in DISPATCH-style (see RFC7957), it is intended to consider proposals for new work in the in the ART and SEC Areas and if the work is appropriate for the IETF and there is sufficient interest, to identify or help create, an appropriate venue for the work.
Domain Name System Operations (dnsop)
Laurier
The DNS Operations working group develops guidelines for the operation of DNS software and services and for the administration of DNS zones. These guidelines provide technical information relating to the implementation of the DNS protocol by the operators and administrators of DNS zones. Discussion about how to structure DNS maintenance work vs. operational matters are now handled as part of the ongoing DNS consultation work.
Quantum Internet Research Group (qirg)
Centre Ville
Overall the goal of the QIRG is to address the question of how to design and build quantum networks. Among its work, QIRG is developing an architectural framework delineating network node roles and definitions, to build a common vocabulary and serve as the first step toward a quantum network architecture.
12:00-13:00 Monday Session II
Getting Ready for Energy-Efficient Networking (green)
Viger
The Getting Ready for Energy-Efficient Networking (GREEN) working group will meet for the fifth time during IETF 124 Montreal to explore use cases, derive requirements, and provide solutions for identifying and characterizing energy efficiency metrics, defining methods related to monitoring and controlling energy consumption of network devices, and optimizing energy efficiency across the Internet.
Routing Area Open Meeting (rtgarea)
Laurier
This session provides updates on Routing Area (RTG) topics, as well as other topics that are potentially useful for all interested in the RTG area.
14:30-16:30 Monday Session III
Transport and Services Working Group (tsvwg)
Laurier
The Transport and Services Working Group (TSVWG) is the forum for development and publication of RFCs dealing with transport-layer topics that are not in scope of an existing working group or do not justify the formation of a new working group.
17:00-19:00 Monday Session IV
AI Preferences (aipref)
Laurier
The AI Preferences (AIPREF) working group was chartered to make it easier to express how AI models should use Internet content. The working group has adopted two documents as starting points to define a vocabulary for expressing AI usage preferences as well as to define mechanisms for associating preferences with content and they will be up for discussion at this meeting.
Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Open Meeting (irtfopen)
Viger
News and updates from the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), along with talks by recent Applied Networking Research Prize winners.
19:00-20:00
Hackdemo Happy Hour
Espace 21 Gallerie
A social gathering to highlight work accomplished during the preceding IETF Hackathon.
19:30-21:30
New Participants’ Dinner (Open to new participants only)
Espace 21 Forum
This dinner is a chance to meet other newcomers to IETF meetings and is organized by the Secretariat. Please note that pre-registration is required, and a US$15 fee will be charged. More information is available on the New Participants webpage.
TUESDAY, 4 November 2025
09:30-11:00 Tuesday Session I
11:00-11:30
IAB New Work Help Desk
Square Dorchester
11:30-13:00 Tuesday Session II
Internet Area Working Group (intarea)
Agora
The Internet Area Working Group acts primarily as a forum for discussing far-ranging topics that affect the entire area. Such topics include, for instance, address space issues, basic IP layer functionality, and architectural questions. The group also serves as a forum to distribute information about ongoing activities in the area, create a shared understanding of the challenges and goals for the area, and to enable coordination.
Secure Evidence and Attestation Transport (seat)
Laurier
This is the first meeting of the newly chartered SEAT WG, which will document a set of use cases that protocols such as (D)TLS should be able to support. It will initially deliver a Standards Track protocol that meets these use cases and enables peer or mutual attestation for (D)TLS using the extension and/or exporter features of D(TLS). Mutual attestation will be supported with and without client TLS authentication to facilitate anonymous client attestation. Such a protocol would allow an entity to produce Evidence or an Attestation Result about itself for another party to evaluate.
14:30-16:30 Tuesday Session III
Web Bot Auth (webbotauth) BoF
Place du Canada
This BoF proposes a working group to define mechanisms for websites to identify non-browser clients (bots), a need which is becoming stronger as non-browser traffic on the Web grows in volume and importance. The community appears to be converging on cryptographic identity as a solution, and this BoF session builds on a well-attended side meeting during IETF 122, subsequent discussion on the web-bot-auth mailing list, and a BoF at IETF 123.
17:00-19:00 Tuesday Session IV
PKI, Logs, And Tree Signatures (plants) BoF
Place du Canada
The goal is to charter a Working Group to address the impact of large post-quantum signatures on PKIs with Certificate Transparency (CT; RFC 6962 and RFC 9162), when used in interactive protocols like TLS (RFC 8446).
Standard Communication with Network Elements (scone)
Viger
This working group aims to develop a mechanism to allow an application to receive notifications containing throughput advice for both upstream and downstream traffic. The throughput advice serves as a guideline to enhance user experience and represents the maximum bitrate manageable by a single network element for that user's current connection.
19:15-23:00
IETF Board Game Night
Espace 21 Forum
Please join us for an evening of board games, light snacks, and non-alcoholic beverages. Some board games and puzzles will be provided, though bringing your own game to share is encouraged. We plan to offer games that vary in difficulty and game play length.
WEDNESDAY, 5 November 2025
09:30-11:30 Wednesday Session I
Authenticated Transfer (atp) BoF
Place du Canada
Authenticated Transfer (AT) is a collection of protocol components which together provide a generic framework for interoperable social web applications, using self-certifying network data. It builds on existing IETF technologies including CBOR, OAuth, HTTP, WebSockets, and DNS. The goal of this non-working group forming BoF is to share experiences from early experimentation and implementation, and address as many chartering and scope questions as possible. If successful, this BoF would be followed by a formal WG-forming BoF.
Routing Area Working Group (rtgwg)
Laurier
This session is a venue to discuss, evaluate, support, and develop proposals for new work in the Routing Area. This working group also works on fast-reroute, YANG models, and other general routing topics.
12:00-13:00 Wednesday Session II
14:30-15:30 Wednesday Session III
Web and Internet Transport Area Open Meeting (witarea)
Viger
The WITAREA open meeting provides an overview of the WIT Area activities and presentations covering deployments and sharing operational experience.
16:00-17:00 Wednesday Session IV
AI Preferences (aipref)
Viger
The AI Preferences (AIPREF) working group was chartered to make it easier to express how AI models should use Internet content. The working group has adopted two documents as starting points to define a vocabulary for expressing AI usage preferences as well as to define mechanisms for associating preferences with content and they will be up for discussion at this meeting.
17:30-19:30
IETF Plenary
Place du Canada
The plenary is the one meeting addressed to the entire IETF community. There are leadership reports about the state of the IETF, as well as “open mic” sessions for community feedback on a broad range of topics.
THURSDAY, 6 November 2025
09:30-11:00 Thursday Session I
RESTful Provisioning Protocol (rpp)
Notre Dame
The RPP working group is focused on designing a new protocol via a series of specifications known collectively as the RESTful Provisioning Protocol (RPP). This work follows in the path of the successful Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP), which was standardized (STD69) in 2009 to address the needs of domain name management between domain name registries and registrars.
Measurement and Analysis for Protocols Research Group (maprg)
Viger
This session has a special focus on traffic impact by AI crawlers. With the rise of AI where the underlying models are often based on content from the open web, there is increased activity of web crawlers, creating high loads on content hosts and hosting platforms. This session will look into the evolution and effectiveness of the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP, RFC9309) also known as robots.txt, reports on traffic load from multiple views like content providers and hosting platforms, and discuss initial ideas to address these challenges.
11:30-13:00 Thursday Session II
IAB Open Meeting (iabopen)
Place du Canada
In this session, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) provides a detailed update on their technical programs, workshops, and current work-in-process architectural guidance documents, and seeks community input.
13:15-14:15
Host Speakers Series: "Evolution of Internet Measurements for Applications" by Eric Bertrand
Centre Ville
14:30-16:30 Thursday Session III
Operations and Management Area Open Meeting (opsarea)
Place du Canada
The OPSAREA open meeting provides an overview of the OPS Area activities and presentations covering deployments and sharing operational experience. This session will provide an update on IETF OPS work, status of the work related to handling operational considerations in IETF specifications, discussion related to consolidation of benchmarking and IP performance (BIPP) activities, and DNS consultation task.
16:30-17:00
IAB New Work Help Desk
Square Dorchester
17:00-19:00 Thursday Session IV
Crypto Forum (cfrg)
Laurier
The Crypto Forum Research Group considers cryptographic protocols, primitives and their parameters that are useful for IETF work. Current CFRG work is focused on signature schemes with specific properties, AEAD mechanisms, Password Authenticated Key Establishment (PAKE) and multi-party computation (MPC) protocols, as well as general questions (guidelines for writing cryptography specifications) and implementation guidance documents.
19:15-20:15
New Participants’ Social Hour (Open to new participants only)
Square Victoria
This gathering is a great opportunity for new participants to share their experiences and discuss topics of interest with IETF leadership. More information is available on the New Participants webpage.
FRIDAY, 7 November 2025
09:30-11:30 Friday Session I
Security Area Open Meeting (saag)
Viger
The Security Area Advisory Group (SAAG) is an open forum of the Security Area to discuss security and privacy issues. It typically meets during the face-to-face IETF meeting. SAAG is not a working group and does not adopt or publish documents.
11:30-13:00 Friday Session II
Domain Name System Operations (dnsop)
Place du Canada
The DNS Operations working group develops guidelines for the operation of DNS software and services and for the administration of DNS zones. These guidelines provide technical information relating to the implementation of the DNS protocol by the operators and administrators of DNS zones.
14:30-16:30 Friday Session III
16:45-17:45
Farewell Reception
Convention Floor Foyer