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 has produced 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 can 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 an XML-based data representation, that can be easily manipulated using non-specialized XML manipulation tools. - Supports integration with existing user authentication methods - Supports integration with existing configuration database systems - Supports multiple (e.g. candidate and running) data-stores to optimize configuration preparation and activation - Supports network wide configuration transactions (with features such as locking and rollback capability) - Runs over a secure transport; SSH is mandatory to implement while TLS, BEEP, and SOAP are optional transports. - Provides support for asynchronous notifications. The NETCONF protocol has been designed independent of the data modeling language. The IETF recommends to use YANG as the NETCONF modeling language, which introduces advanced language features for configuration management. In the current phase of the incremental development of NETCONF the workgroup will focus on following items: 1. 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 was started based on the discussion in IETF #73 (see http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/08nov/slides/netconf-3.pdf). 2. A technical errata has been posted on rfc4742. The work on rfc4741bis also uncovered some additional fixes/clarifications that need to be made to rfc4742, the WG has been working on rfc4742bis and is nearly done with this work item. 3. Netconf Access Control Model (NACM) Requirements and Solution. There is a need for standard mechanisms to restrict NETCONF protocol access for authenticated users to a pre- configured (by operator) subset of all available NETCONF operations and content. The WG will produce a document which identifies the access control requirements specific to the NETCONF protocol, as defined in [4741bis]. This document will also provide a standard YANG data model which addresses these requirements. It is possible that the WG will not reach solution consensus on every possible requirement identified in the document. In this case, it is expected that the solution will evolve over time to meet the the remaining unmet requirements. 4. The NETCONF server may want to notify interested clients about particular NETCONF protocol/server events. The WG will work on a NETCONF specific YANG module(s) to define suitable notifications. 5. As implementation and deployment experience gained with the NETCONF monitoring data model, the WG may revise the NETCONF monitoring data model to add additional objects that can be used to check the status of the server and to discover additional information about the server implementation. The WG may choose to revise the NETCONF monitoring data model.