Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/ietf/osids/osids-minutes-92jul.txt

Text File | 1993-02-17 | 23KB | 575 lines

Editor's Note: Minutes received 8/12

CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Steve Hardcastle-Kille/UCL, Doug Simmons/IBM and Justin
Walker/Apple

Minutes of the OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS)

Comments on Agenda

Mark Knopper sent apologies for non-attendance and then turned up.

Here follow comments on the Minutes from San Diego (OSI-DS-MINUTES 7),
particularly relating to action items from that meeting:


   o Regarding maintenance of RFC-1274, it is Steve and Paul Barker who
     will be involved, not Colin as the Minutes claimed.

   o Eric Huizer's strategy document is ready (comments will be made
     later in the Minutes).

   o Chris's documents (OSI-DS 14, 16, 17, 19) have not been revised.
     This will be done by the next meeting.  Mark Knopper has taken up
     the network schema.

   o Documents OSI-DS-12, 23, 24 have been revised and submitted to the
     IESG. As suggested in the previous meeting, Steve Hardcastle-Kille
     read NADF 175 (which has been revised to NADF-(***Didn't get the
     reference***).  He cleared up some misconceptions regarding he NADF
     position, but overall, his position did not change from the last
     meeting.

   o Wengyik continued to work on interoperability issues.  However, he
     had no input, since he was not present.

   o There will be a NADF meeting next week (that is, the week of 7/20).

   o The QOS experiments will be discussed as indicated in the Agenda.

   o The JPEG schema was reviewed.  However, the Schema group had not
     yet formed, so this item was continued.  Paul Barker was to
     establish the schema group, but this had not done this because of
     overload due to Steve's departure to the ISODE Consortium.
     Resources were requested (volunteers were solicited; no response
     was heard from Russ and Mark).

   o The Character Set experiment wasn't discussed because Geir Pederson
     wasn't present.  The action was continued.

   o Tim Howes brought us up to date on the DIT Counting effort.  The
     code has been written, and will appear in the next ISODE Consortium

                                   1





     release of QUIPU. The item was continued.

   o Work on schema publishing was completed and will be discussed
     later.

   o The action item on preferred names was continued (no one was
     present to speak on the subject).

   o Steve H-K finished the revision of RFC-1279 , with Wengyik
     consulting.  The paper has not actually been updated (in its
     electronic form).  It will be circulated.

   o The lightweight protocol note (LDAP) was revised and circulated.

   o Steve Hardcastle-Kille looked into possible ISO alternatives to SOS
     (the Simple OSI Stack).  There are no current ISO proposals
     addressing the SOS issues, but John Day (from BBN) has circulated a
     document (in OSI circles) on the OSI upper layers.  Reviews are not
     complete, but this document does not seem to be an answer.


There were no Matters Arising.  We therefore moved right into the
liaison reports.


  1. RARE (Eric Huizer)
     As reported at the last meeting, WG3 is no more.  The new RARE
     structure has eight Working Groups, of which one, WGNAP (the
     Working Group for Network Application support), will undertake
     directory services (as well as time protocols, etc.).  A major
     problem is that, while a Chair has been identified and wants to
     undertake the work, he can't get permission to do the job.  WGNAP
     hopes to meet in November.  A distribution list has been set up for
     other than directory service issues.  WGNAP will continue to use
     OSI-DS for its directory service discussions.  The Working Group
     has small budget from RARE, provided they can come up with a
     priority list of tasks.  This could be applied to travel.

  2. OSI/CCITT (Ken Rossen)
     There were two significant events to report.  ISO 9594 passed to
     DIS. The most significant change was in the area of access control
     (replication and an extended information model).  DISP (shadow);
     DOP (binding) are new protocols.  An access control context is a
     combination of levels of access control.  The US pushed
     successfully for simplified access control:  this only allows a
     decision to be made at administration points (new in model); a
     decision isn't overridden by lower levels of the tree.  As of the
     last editing meeting, merged text was produced.  Unfortunately, the
     circulated stuff was a mess.  There is a good copy, dated 12/25/91
     (hence it is called ``the Christmas text'').
     The second event occurred in May.  When ISO SC21 met in Ottawa, the

                                   2





   Directory Services Group also met, and changes to the Standard were
   discussed (with a 2 year target, down from the usual 4).  Use of
   OSI management (CMIP) to manage the directory was put on hold,
   since the responsible party (from the US) resigned.  Work on
   authentication could be undertaken as there is support for small
   changes, e.g., certificate revocation.  This will wait for the next
   meeting to commit effort to this work.  There was a feeling that
   there is need for closer work with (ISO) security folks for a more
   sophisticated security model.  Given upper layer security services,
   there is a need for a scheme to apply to directory services.  Also,
   there is a new edition of ASN-1 encoding rules, which could effect
   directory.  Distinguished encoding rules were introduced that are
   different from those currently used by the directory.  There is
   need to work out conflicts.  This could affect digital signatures.
   The 1992 X.500/9594 should progress at the next editing meeting in
   Orlando, in the fall of `92 (this will involve serious cleanup.
   Rows of ducks will be set up at a US meeting in Nashua this week.).

3. OIW (Russ Wright)
   The OIW continued work on standardized profiles for DAP, replacing
   agreements from the OIW and EWOS. They are on schedule for results
   by the end of year.  A joint meeting was held with the X400 SIG to
   look at MHS and the directory.  Their desires right now are
   unclear, but they will provide a clearer specification.
   The IGOSS document was reviewed.  This is a combined document
   representing input from GOSIP, the power industry, and the
   manufacturing industry.  This requires `92 directory extensions,
   including replication.  They were asked to review POSIX documents
   relating to directory services.  The documents themselves are in
   the mail.

4. DISI (Chris Weider)
   Documents describing advanced directory usage and how to get
   registered in the directory have been worked on, but not
   circulated.  A revision RFC-1292 has been worked on Four new papers
   have been prepared:  a pilot catalog, a description of DIT setup,
   the directory naming philosophy, and a schema for restaurant
   information.

5. AARN Mark Prior
   There is not much happening at this time.  AARN is not willing to
   commit to further work, nor are they willing to say no to further
   work.  They are waiting for December (***Why?***).  There are
   currently 40000 entries in their directory, and they have just
   added affiliates.  Master and slave machines will be soon be
   upgraded.

6. NADF (Marshall Rose/Einar Stefferud)
   The last NADF meeting was in April, the next will be next week
   (7/20).  Discussion of vendor plans at the last meeting was

                                 3





     exciting (depressing?).  Several documents are available.  One
     provides a naming scheme for a country (discussing principles), and
     a second provides an application of these principles to the US. A
     third discusses the theory and practicality of directory security.
     This latter is up for more debate.  There is a desire for simple
     authentication, but this may be difficult to protect from replay
     attack.  The recommendation may be for protected passwords.  The
     documents should become RFCs (but some can't even seem to be put
     into the politically *in*correct PostScript format).  Marshall will
     provide copies for Steve Hardcastle-Kille.  None of the twelve
     vendors present supported any but simple authentication.  None
     would commit to supporting `92 extensions (except one who was
     planning to support the extended information model).  In short,
     things don't seem to be going very well (according to public
     comment at the meeting.  This is born out by Ken's observations at
     COS). There seems to be more positive support for simplified access
     control (over the basic version).
     Ken noted that they think they've fixed NADF complaints.  Time was
     spent at the Ottawa meeting on defect resolution (there is a
     directory implementor's guide; see Ken).  There seems to be some
     interplay between ISO, NADF.


As no pilot project representatives were present, we continued on with
the rest of the Agenda.

The Naming Guidelines Document, the UFN Document, and the Document
Defining String Representation of UFN's.  All three were submitted in
April to the IESG. They are expected to move forward by end of this
month.

The Strategy Document.  The Strategy document (based on Steve's
original) was much modified, based on comments received.  Most of the
original was retained, but with editing and restructuring.  One of the
main criticisms was references to other RFCs without indicating the RFC
content.  Eric's solution was to pull the main points from the RFCs in
question, using reference only for detail.  He added deployment details
and requirements.  Therefore, there were a lot of references to DISI
papers.  The ASCII version (as posted) was quite unreadable.  Apologies
were tendered, along with a promise to fix it.  Comments were requested.

One comment at the meeting:  a possible extension involving the use of
large data values was questioned.  The response was that this is only a
*possible* extension, not a planned (or required) one.  An observation
was made that all items in this section (of the document) could be
termed controversial.  The main point is that the model is not rigid:
if deployment experience indicates that a change is needed, it will be
addressed.

Regarding progress to ID-hood for the strategy document, the approval of
the other authors is needed.  Then an informational RFC can be

                                   4





submitted.  Steve Hardcastle-Kille wants to see this done reflecting an
IAB/IESG consensus (as was done, e.g., for RFC-920).  He wants the
submission and publication to reflect IAB policy.  It is unclear what
the tradition is.  It was felt that we should have OSI-DS consensus, so
a sense of meeting was taken; there were no votes against the document,
but there were a large number of abstentions (from those who had not
read it yet).  Eric will take changes, publish the new document as an
RFC (both text and PS formats), and get it into the IESG stream.  The
attendees seemed to favor not waiting for the next meeting, given the
consensus here (all who had read approved).

Eric noted that none of the three documents mentioned earlier showed up
on the IESG action list that he gets.  This was deemed to be a dropped
ball.  Eric will follow up to determine how the ball got dropped and
assure that it doesn't happen again.

Tim Howes:  Some comments on the schema document, from Colin Robins
(sent by email to the OSI-DS list), were distributed.  Given that the
schema is rapidly changing, the idea of storing (a description of) the
schema in the DIT has been investigated.  Tim looked first at the '92
Standard, which was very complicated.  The `92 information is in his
document, but comments he's received indicate that it (the `92 content)
should be pared down.  The document talks about representing attribute.
information in the directory, although no syntaxes were defined.
Although the document says this work will be a subset of `92, Tim
doesn't think it really is.  We must decide on compatibility with `92
vs.  having something ``now''.

The question was asked:  what are the areas of incompatibility?  Among
others, there is the attribute syntax, which is difficult to figure out.
From Colin:  how does one go from an OID to an identification of
information it represents?

It was noted that an OID tree may be useful by itself, independent of
other uses.  There is a bootstrap problem with this.  The issue is where
to find a description of information, and what is the efficiency hit?
Using well-known locations in the DIT may avoid a recursive upward walk
of the tree.  This also assumes a configuration run that tells the DSA
what well-known locations to check.  The directory doesn't do dynamic
interpretations of OIDs.  It was observed that ``compatibility w.  92''
and ``something that works'' may not be exclusive.  Two actions
resulted.  The first was to define the OID tree.  The second was to
revise the schema notes in light of the discussion.  Tim took both.

QOS Experiments.  There was no change from the previous meeting.  This
work has not been a priority (although there is work ``scheduled'', to
be done on Macintosh DUA). Sylvain noted that code that he has seen
doesn't match the RFC (which may have changed since he last checked it).
Tim wanted this taken off the Agenda, since it isn't a priority.  He
would like to surprise us with progress when it happens.

JPEG. The JPEG attribute is not in the schema, but there is code to


                                   5





handle it in ISODE. Russ would like this to be its end.  Proposed to
carry over to next time when the schema group is represented (and so it
shall be).

Character Set.  (Geir Pederson was not present):  Again, the schema
group was an issue.  A discussion commenced on how to get this done.
IANA was suggested as a source of help.  A problem with this is that we
would need to find someone with directory experience to take on some
editing load.  It was recommended that we talk with IANA, then worry
about the short-term.

Selection of the time and place for the next meeting involved two
choices:  INTEROP (October in San Francisco), and the next IETF
(November in Washington).  A vote marginally favored the November IETF
meeting, and this was agreed on.

DSA and DUA Metrics (OSI-DS33 ,OSI-DS 34)


   o Measure pilot projects' success.

   o Deliverables - metrics papers for:

      -  DUAs.
      -  DSAs.
      -  Pilots' metrics.


   o No absolute measure of goodness or badness of DUAs; there's SOME
     importance to the numbers, though.
     Comments on these papers:

   o Set up an FTP ID to keep the OSI-DS documents in for easy retrieval
     before these meetings.  SEH to address.

   o DSA Document - need hands-on experience to tell if this document is
     really worthwhile and accurate.  (comment by Eric Huizer).

   o DUA document - section l2 (query resolution) not very clear what
     one should enter to initiate the query (comment by Time Howes).

   o DUA document - 5 steps to enter a query as opposed to on line via
     UFN.

   o BOTH - is this a Consumer Reports on DUAs/DSAs?  SEH - the user
     endorsement section contains the necessary feedback for analysis.

   o BOTH - there were comments from Paul Andre, were they being
     incorporate?


                                   6





   o DSA Document - section 5,need to discuss the environment - how can
     we measure implementations on different machines?  (comment by Tim
     Howes).

   o DSA Document - need more than lOO to 5OOO entries for accurate
     testing (comment by Tim Howes).

   o DSA Document - need more discussion on security aspects (unknown).

   o BOTH - metrics will not be useful until they are tried out/tested
     against (unknown).

   o BOTH - make measurements available via informational RFC.

   o DSA Document - other implementations tested besides QUIPU? (comment
     by Sylvain Langlois) (Pissaro(sp?), ICL, Dirwiz....)

   o S. Hardcastle-kille:  How many of us are responsible for DUA
     implementations?  Would it be worthwhile to make these documents
     publicly available?  SEH to use RFC for informational test until
     next meeting for feedbacks.

     E. Huizer             To do Siemens DSA.
     T. Howes/R. Wright      Will do DUAs we'll evaluate findings at
                           next meeting.
     S. Hardcastle-Kille      To get these published as RFCs.
     Everyone              To see that these get filled in when DUA's
                           and DSA's tested.


   o Comment - what's the difference between RFC 1292 and DS 33 and 34?
     SEH: 33 and 34 much lower level (and more work to fill out) S.
     Hardcastle-Kille suggested that the vendor be asked if they filled
     out a 33 or 34 before answering to RFC l292.


Representing Network Infrastructure Information in X.5OO (Mark Knopper)
Draft circulated.

Soft Pages Project (Steve Hardcastle-Kille).


   o Comment - IP name space:  defining an address hierarchy.  You
     really don't need that, what advantage over a flat design?

   o Comment - Network elements diagram is a network topology.  What
     happens if that changes?  (comment by Tim Howes).

   o Comment - (Mark Hopper).

                                   7





      -  Not sure if this resolves the problem.
      -  It is too inefficient.
      -  How do you get the bootstrap up and running?


   o ACTION * - Mark Knopper to document how we might use this (where
     might the holes be).

   o Comment - this tree can be kept small just by keeping the DSAs
     ``near'' you in the DIT, as they are the only ones which should
     interest you for cost purposes.

   o Comment - need FTP address for this document (FTP.TOHOKU.AC.JP).

   o Comment - do we need a Working Group to address this problem?

   o ACTION* Thomas Johansen and Mark Knopper to reconsider their
     approaches and attempt some kind of convergence.


LDAP (OSI-DS 26, OSI-DS 27)


   o Comment - kerberos and simple authentication:  do we think this is
     worthwhile and should it be added to the document before it becomes
     an RFC? (Tim Howes).

   o S. Hardcastle-Kille:  Because it is implemented and deployed, then
     it should be documented.

   o Comment - we should submit this to the Standards committee as soon
     as possible.

   o Comment - suggestion that we have Christian look at it, as he has
     strong views on the subject.


DSA Naming (OSI-DS l3)


   o Issue:  Avoiding Deadlock.

   o Comment - the DSA must be named higher in the tree (country level)
     to prevent deadlock, but you do not insure uniqueness.

   o Comment - Erik seemed to remember opposition by the Pissaro group,
     but could not elaborate.

   o Comment - using subtrees seems to be the way we fix things we can't
     fix via X.5OO.

                                   8





   o ACTION* S. Hardcastle-Kille:  To re-write the paper to using
     non-QUIPU language and references.

   o Comment - Erik not comfortable, seems like a way to fix a design
     problem in QUIPU. Need input from other DSA vendors.

   o ACTION* S. Hardcastle-Kille:  To drop this as an OSIDS item and
     take it up as a design issue with ISODE.


Action Items



Chris Weider           Update OSI-DS 14, 16, 17, 19 (carried forward)

E. Huizer              Progress Naming Guidelines, DN Syntax, UFN, and
                       LDAP and LDAP Syntaxes as RFCs.

                       Do Siemens DSA.

T. Howes/R. Wright      Will do DUAs we'll evaluate findings at next
                       meeting.

S. Hardcastle-Kille      Get these published as RFCs.

Everyone               to see that these get filled in when DUA's and
                       DSA's tested.

M. Knopper             To document how we might use this (where might
                       the holes be).

T. Johansen/M. Knopper      Reconsider their approaches and attempt
                       some kind of convergence.

S. Hardcastle-Kille      to re-write the paper to using non-QUIPU
                       language and references.

                       Drop this as an OSI-DS item and take it up as a
                       design issue with ISODE.

                       Revise Charter.

S. Hardcastle-Kille/E. Huizer      Discuss IANA support for Schema
                       Management.

T. Howes               Write note on representation of OID Trees in
                       Directory.

P. Barker              Publish Metric Papers as Internet Drafts.

S. Sataluri            Collect DUA survey results and publish as
                       Internet Draft.

                                   9





Attendees

Ed Albrigo               [e-mail]
Claudio Allocchio        [e-mail]
C. Allan Cargille        [e-mail]
Jodi-Ann Chu             [e-mail]
James Conklin            [e-mail]
Robert Cooney            [e-mail]
Curtis Cox               [e-mail]
Urs Eppenberger          [e-mail]
Ray Freiwirth            [e-mail]
Jisoo Geiter             [e-mail]
Arlene Getchell          [e-mail]
Joan Goldstein           [e-mail]
Steve Hardcastle-Kille   [e-mail]
John Hawthorne           [e-mail]
Tim Howes                [e-mail].
Erik Huizer              [e-mail]
Takashi Ikemoto          [e-mail]
Kevin Jordan             [e-mail]
Jim Knowles              [e-mail]
Sylvain Langlois         [e-mail]
Thomas Lenggenhager      [e-mail]
John McKenna             [e-mail]
John Murray              [e-mail]
Mark Needleman           [e-mail]
William Nichols          [e-mail]
Eric Nowak               [e-mail]
Rakesh Patel             [e-mail]
Mark Prior               [e-mail]
Sheri Repucci            [e-mail]
Jim Romaguera            [e-mail]
Marshall Rose            [e-mail]
Rich Rosenbaum           [e-mail]
Kenneth Rossen           [e-mail]
Srinivas Sataluri        [e-mail]
Douglas Simmons Mark [e-mail]
Einar Stefferud          [e-mail]
Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas [e-mail]
Justin Walker            [e-mail]
William Warner           [e-mail]
Chris Weider             [e-mail]
Brien Wheeler            [e-mail]
Scott Williamson         [e-mail]
Steven Winnett           [e-mail]
Russ Wright              [e-mail]
Yung-Chao Yu             [e-mail]



                                  10