IP Security Protocol (ipsec) Charter

NOTE: This charter is accurate as of the 37th IETF Meeting in San Jose. It may now be out-of-date. (Consider this a "snapshot" of the working group from that meeting.) Up-to-date charters for all active working groups can be found elsewhere in this Web server.

Chair(s)

Ran Atkinson <rja@cisco.com>
Paul Lambert <palamber@us.oracle.com>

Security Area Director(s):

Jeffrey Schiller <jis@mit.edu>

Mailing List Information

General Discussion:ipsec@tis.com
To Subscribe: ipsec-request@tis.com
Archive: ftp://ftp.tis.com/pub/lists/ipsec

Description of Working Group

Rapid advances in communication technology have accentuated the need for security in the Internet. The IP Security Protocol Working Group (IPSEC) will develop mechanisms to protect client protocols of IP. A security protocol in the network layer will be developed to provide cryptographic security services that will flexibly support combinations of authentication, integrity, access control, and confidentiality.

The protocol formats for the IP Authentication Header (AH) and IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) will be independent of the cryptographic algorithm. The preliminary goals will specifically pursue host-to-host security followed by subnet-to-subnet and host-to-subnet topologies.

Protocol and cryptographic techniques will also be developed to support the key management requirements of the network layer security. The Internet Key Management Protocol (IKMP) will be specified as an application layer protocol that is independent of the lower layer security protocol.The protocol will be based on the ISAKMP/Oakley work begun in:

draft-ietf-ipsec-isakmp-05.txt,

draft-ietf-ipsec-oakley-01.txt, and

draft-ietf-ipsec-isakmp-oakley-00.txt

A follow on work item may incorporate mechanisms based on SKIP as defined in:

draft-ietf-ipsec-skip-07.txt

and related documents.Flexibility in the protocol will allow eventual support of Key Distribution Centers (KDC), such as are used by Kerberos.

Goals and Milestones

Done: Submit Internet-Draft of Internet Key Management Protocol to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.
Done: Post as an Internet-Draft the IP Security Protocol.
Done: Post as an Interenet-Draft the specification for Internet key management.
Done: Submit the Internet Key Management Protocol to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.
Done: Conduct initial interoperability testing of Encapsulating Security payload (ESP) and Authentication Header (AH).
Done: Submit revised Interent-Drafts for ESP, AH, and IP Security Architecture.
Done: Submit revised Internet-Drafts of IP Security Architecture, ESP, and AH to the IESG for consideration as Draft Standards.
Dec 96: Submit revised Internet-Drafts of IP Security Architecture, ESP, and AH to the IESG for consideration as Draft Standards.
Jan 97: Submit Internet-Draft of the Internet Key Management Protocol (IKMP) based on ISAKMP/Oakley to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.
Jul 97: Submit IKMP to IESG for consideration as a Draft Standard.