Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/ietf/94jul/area.applications.94jul.txt

Text File | 1994-11-01 | 11KB | 283 lines

Applications Area

Directors:


   o Erik Huizer:  [e-mail]
   o John Klensin:  [e-mail]


Area Summary reported by John Klensin/MCI and Erik Huizer/SURFnet

This is a short report on the status of the Applications Area as of the
conclusion of the Toronto IETF meeting, July 1994.

The Applications Area currently contains the following working groups:


   o Access/Synchronization of the Internet Directories (ASID)
   o Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
   o Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
   o Internet White Pages Requirements (WHIP)
   o Mail Extensions (MAILEXT)
   o MHS-DS (MHSDS)
   o Notifications and Acknowledgements Requirements (NOTARY)
   o OSI Directory Services (OSIDS)
   o TELNET (TELNET)


In addition, the Applications Area and the User Services Area jointly
oversee the following working groups:


   o Integrated Directory Services (IDS)
   o Integration of Internet Information Resources (IIIR)
   o Networked Information Retrieval (NIR)
   o Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)
   o Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS)


The status of these groups is described in the User Services Area
Report.

The TELNET TN3270 Enhancements (TN3270E) and X.400 Operations (X400OPS)
Working Groups were concluded since the last area report.  A brief
description of their status appears below.

During the Toronto IETF, the Applications Area also sponsored the
following BOF sessions.  These BOFs are expected to evolve into working
groups.


   o Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
   o Support of Firewalls by Applications (SOFA)
   o Quality of information Services (QUIS)



Hypertext Markup Language BOF (HTML)

At the 30th IETF in Toronto, on 26 July 1994, a BOF was held on the
formation of a Hypertext Markup Language Working Group (HTML).

This BOF followed as a result of discussions at the WWW94 workshop.
Features of HTML were identified as belonging to various levels.  Each
level requiring all features of a `lower' level to be implemented.  The
creation of a working group was proposed to formally describe the
various levels, starting with level 0 dealing with existing current
practice.

As a by-product of the HTML BOF, a group is being organized to examine
the issues associated with using full SGML over MIME. This group is
expected to work cooperatively with SGML/Open and is likely to evolve
into either a BOF or a working group by the December IETF meeting.



Quality of Information Services BOF (QUIS)

This BOF focused on quality of information services as perceived by
users.  It did not discuss quality of the information itself.  Focus is
on bad links, missing links, wrong links and such.  A discussion on
limiting the scope ensued and resulted in an acceptably strict problem
definition which will be used as the basis for a charter to form a
working group on this subject.



Support of Firewalls by Applications BOF (SOFA)

Attendees discussed firewall implementations, with the view that there
are user requirements for interoperability.  They largely agreed that
interoperability among firewall implementations is a growing concern
since companies are allowing their customers, suppliers and trading
partners access to their networks at an increasing rate, and firewalls
appear to be a basic method for controlling that access.



Access/Synchronization of the Internet Directories Working Group (ASID)

The ASID Working Group had its first meeting as an official working
group.  Mark Kosters gave an informational presentation on the RWhois
protocol, which may be brought into the IETF in the future.  Christian
Huitema gave a summary of progress on the SOLO protocol since the last
IETF, including some centroid experience (the * response) that prompted
Chris Weider to volunteer to work on the centroid paper to make it more
general and incorporate the SOLO experience.  Joan Gargano gave a
summary of the last WNILS meeting.  WHOIS++ work will continue in the
ASID group now that the WHOIS++ documents are on their way to RFC
status.  The first additional WHOIS++ work item, a draft describing how
to use the mesh, was described by Chris and Patrick.  The CLDAP draft
was approved by the group, after consensus was reached on the remaining
issue (authentication).  It will now be submitted to the area directors
for elevation to the standards track.  Various problems with the LDAP
and related drafts, discovered as a result of implementation experience,
were discussed.  All issues are believed to be resolved, and Steve Kille
and Tim Howes took action items to produce new drafts of the RFCs within
a month.  Finally, Glenn Mansfield gave a presentation on some X.500
schema publishing work he has been doing.  The schema working group also
took a related action to start taking schema requests immediately, and
have things up and working in a month.


Electronic Data Interchange Working Group (EDI)

The EDI Working Group held two meetings in Toronto.  The first reviewed
work to-date on the specification for encapsulating EDI within MIME
objects.  In preparation for starting a paper on the use of EDI through
the Internet, various requirements and concerns were discussed among the
participants.  This surfaced a desire for a separate discussion paper
concerning use of MIME. Walt Houser gave a brief presentation about the
US Electronic Commerce Acquisition Team effort.  On the second day, they
began to formulate the structure of the usage document and made writing
assignment.  First drafts are due in August.


Internet Message Access Protocol Working Group (IMAP)

IMAP's major objective for this meeting was to review comments on the
``03'' and ``04'' versions of the IMAP4 draft, in preparation for
submitting the specification as a Proposed Standard.  The objective was
achieved; a small number of wording additions and changes resulted.  The
question of what the autologout timer minimum value should be was also
discussed.  A separate IMAP4 extension proposal may be forthcoming to
define a way for the client to tell the server what it wants, but the
base document was left unchanged.  A new draft incorporating the wording
changes discussed will be posted within a few days, and a Last Call for
the base specification and two related documents is expected shortly
thereafter.


Internet White Pages Requirements Working Group (WHIP)

The working group met to discuss four open issues:

   o Access Control
   o Conceptual Model
   o Synchronization
   o New Information Objects

There were no major contentions.  Each item produced new input for the
draft.  Under access control it was generally accepted that the IWPS
will be an anonymous/public service without write/modify access.  The
conceptual model will be expanded and rewritten to clear up and more
precisely represent the model.  In particular, the meta data model used
with the URN to URC mapping/use.  Synchronization of the different WPS
databases is not going to be an issue addressed by this working group.
The group's focus will be on data integrity which very loosely touches
this topic.  Security certificates will be looked at being added as a
possible new information object.

It was felt that the WPS requirements from RFCs 1588 and 1107 should be
condensed as another document that this group should write.

As work progresses on the meta data representation of WPS, Joan Gargano
volunteered to write a short RFC to specify the use of the
priority/preference attributes associated with the WP server URLs.


Mail Extensions Working Group (MAILEXT)

This new working group reviewed and recommended action on proposals for
SMTP command pipelining, SMTP data ``chunking'' and binary data streams,
a 521 error code for SMTP and language labeling in MIME. Future work for
this working group will include a review of proposals to clarify
existing mail documents and the relationship among them.


MHS Directory Services Working Group (MHSDS)

MHS-DS identified a number of minor editorial changes to be made in the
five documents on which it is currently working.  All five documents
will be progressed onto the RFC track by 2 September.  The documents
are:


   o ``Use of the Directory to support mapping between X.400 and RFC 822
     Addresses'' (draft-ietf-mhsds-supmapping)---to be progressed as an
     Experimental RFC

   o ``Representing the O/R Address hierarchy in the Directory
     Information Tree'' (draft-ietf-mhsds-infotree)---to be progressed
     as a Proposed Standard

   o ``Representing Tables and Subtrees in the Directory''
     (draft-ietf-mhsds-subtrees)---to be progressed as a Proposed
     Standard

   o ``MHS use of Directory to support MHS Routing''
     (draft-ietf-mhsds-routdirectory)---to be progressed as a Proposed
     Standard

   o ``Introducing Project Long Bud:  Internet Pilot Project for the
     Deployment of X.500 Directory Information in Support of X.400
     Routing'' (draft-ietf-mhsds-long-bud-intro)---to be progressed as
     an Informational RFC


In addition, the working group reported the status of its pilot project,
Project Long Bud, and identified some key steps which need to be taken
to advance the project further.  Presently, two of the proposed four
core DSAs are in operation and are fully replicating the top levels of
the Open Community Routing Tree.  The DIT is configured such that the
two DSAs act as hot backups for each other.  US, GB, and BE information
is being exchanged, and DE is expressing interest.  We plan to add the
remaining two core DSAs in the next couple of months, and we will
actively pursue getting more countries on-line.



Notifications and Acknowledgements Requirements Working Group
(NOTARY)


NOTARY reached near closure on the format of notifications.  At the
meeting, the issue of error codes was raised; there is a need for an
error code that provides a more precise description than the current
SMTP error code set that the current proposal uses.  The group decided
to:

   o Advance the current draft as soon as possible, in order to inform
     the rest of the world that most of the work is stable.

   o Try to make a decision on what kind of error codes to use at or
     before the San Jose IETF.

NOTARY also embraced an effort to describe vacation notices, and
recommended setting up a new working group to handle receipt
notifications.


OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS)

OSI-DS did not meet in Toronto.  The group finished its last
Internet-Draft on schema management and will close down in the coming
month.


TELNET Working Group (TELNET)

The TELNET Working Group has completed all of its major work and will be
concluded before the next IETF. There are several proposals around for
enhanced security (privacy, authentication, or both) that involve
TELNET; these proposals will be proceeded in a new working group (to be
created) that will be tightly focused on TELNET security.  That working
group will probably be managed in the Operational Requirements or
Security Areas, with Applications Area review.


TELNET TN3270 Enhancements Working Group (TN3270E)

As expected, the TELNET TN3270 Enhancements Working Group completed its
work and was concluded before the Toronto IETF.


X.400 Operations Working Group (X400OPS)

As expected, the X.400 Operations Working Group completed its work and
was concluded before the Toronto IETF after producing its final working
drafts as RFCs.