Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/ietf/x400ops/x400ops-minutes-92jul.txt

Text File | 1993-02-17 | 23.0 KB | 535 lines

Editor's Note: Minutes received 8/12

CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_


Reported by Allan Cargille/UWisc

Minutes of the X.400 Operations Working Group (X400OPS)

First Session

Alf Hansen Chaired the meeting.  Allan Cargille volunteered to take
Minutes.  The Agenda was modified to discuss Working Group status and
the status of the Wisconsin NSF X.400 Project and the Cosine MHS
Project.

Alf distributed the new Charter before the meeting.  It was agreed that
the proposed new time schedule for the documents would be revised after
discussion of the documents.  Note:  this was not done in the meeting,
and should be done on the mailing list.  Action - Alf

Other issues discussed during the first session included:


   o Change control.  The IESG (and IAB ?) agreed that change control
     for RFC1327 (the latest version of mapping between X.400 and RFC822
     mail) was assigned to the RARE Working Group on Mail and Messaging.
     This prompted the following discussions:

      -  Is it OK for IETF RFCs to be assigned to another group?

      -  How will people in the x400ops Working Group be able to
         participate in further revisions of this document?

      -  How will this be publicized ?

     It was clarified that the RARE-MSG Working Group is an open Working
     Group.  Members of the x400ops Working Group are welcome to join
     the mailing list and participate in the Group.  Here's how to join:

         Send a message to [e-mail] with the following text in
         the BODY of the message (NOT the subject).

         SUBSCRIBE WG-MSG Your-given-name Your-surname

         This will automatically subscribe you to the list.  An automatic
         reply will be sent back to you.

         The address of the mailing list itself is [e-mail], or
         /S=wg-msg/O=rare/PRMD=surf/ADMD=400net/C=nl/.

   o There was also discussion about the number of mailing lists which
     deal with X.400 issues.  Often messages are posted to multiple
     lists.  It was recognized that having these multiple lists is a

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  pain, but this Working Group is unlikely to be able to change the
  situation.  It was recommended that when an initial message is
  posted to multiple lists, the message should clearly identify *one*
  list on which the follow-up discussion should take place.

o Action items from last March 92 meeting:
  a.  John Sherburne (SPRINT) will work with Tony Genovese to figure
  out how US can provide an MTA that has X.25 connectivity.

   -  Tony reported that accepting ADMD = <single space> is a problem
      for Sprint.  He did not know if that is for technical,
      political, or financial reasons.
      [action] Tony continue to work on a WEP which is accessible
      over public X.25.

   -  Ed Albrigo from the Corporation for Open System (COS) gave a
      report on their X.400 activities.  They are working on the
      following:

      1. Establishing direct network-layer connections to the
         Internet.  They plan to route both IP and CLNP.

      2. Establishing X.400 links which connect the OSINet X.400
         community to the GO-MHS community.

      3. They are planning to go to complete ``electronic-only''
         communication with ten COS member companies by December
         1992.
      Ed confirmed that COS will comply with current RFCs and
      recommendations for the GO-MHS community.
      It was clarified that COS uses X.25 in their private OSINet
      network, but that is a private network that is not connected to
      public X.25.

   -  There was a discussion about connections to ATTmail.  Internet
      RFC822 mail users should be able to send mail to all ATTmail
      users.  However, the ATTmail <--> Internet mail gateway
      produces bad addresses, so mail is often un-replyable.

  b.  Urs will ask the COSINE MHS Project Team to submit the address
  mapping table procedures as a draft RFC. - Done.
  c.  Stef - Start a discussion on X.400 OPS and WG1 lists about ADMD
  name in the U.S. See section 3.1.2.  [of March 1992 Minutes]

   -  Not done.

   -  Note that the rare-wg1 mailing list has been succeeded by the
      wg-msg list (see section 2 above).

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      [action] Stef start this discussion.  [action] Someone email
      Stef to start this discussion.  [done]
      See related discussion of this in Agenda item 5.

  d.  Alf will send the updated Charter to the list.  - Done
  e.  Claudio will produce a draft document that will propose a
  method for using DNS to store X.400 to RFC 822 mapping and routing.
  - Done.
  f.  Claudio will follow up the MAIL 11 mapping document.  - Done
  g.  Harald will follow up the International Character set document.
  - Done

o Status of X.400 Operations
  a.  Allan Cargille discussed the status and future of the NSF X.400
  Project.  The project has been running since August, 1990 and is
  now toward the end of the initial grant.  The project has operated
  the experimental PRMD ``XNREN''. Fifteen to twenty sites have
  registered as members of this PRMD, but only approximately five are
  currently exchanging X.400 traffic.  The project has acted as a
  coordination point for U.S. entries in the RFC987/1148/1327 mapping
  tables.  The project also served as a beta site for several PP
  releases, and developed and contributed software to support the
  Fujitsu dexNET 200 fax modem in PP. The project is operating a
  primary MTA running PP 6.0 on a dedicated DecStation 3100/Ultrix.
  Some sites, including Wisconsin, are running the IBM/Wisconsin Argo
  X.400 software, which includes a UA. The project has also acted as
  a Well-Known Entry Point (WEP) to the Cosine MHS Project (see
  below).  We are seeking an extension of the grant to continue
  supporting a stable U.S. WEP and to participate in the ongoing
  research work to develop a stable X.400 infrastructure.  Without
  continued funding, our project will end at the end of this calendar
  year.
  b.  Jim Romaguera presented an overview of the Cosine MHS Project
  at SWITCH (Switzerland).  That project began in (January 1991 ?)
  and continued work begun by the RARE MHS Project Team.  They
  coordinate the academic and research X.400 service in Europe.  They
  have finished 80 percent of their goals for the current project
  period, which ends at the end of this calendar year.  The project
  supports international X.400 connections between all Western
  European countries, as well as Greece, Slovenia, Lithuania, the
  United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China,
  India, and the Republic of Korea.  Some countries have multiple
  networks participating in the service.  Most European participants
  have private connections to one or more commercial ADMDs.  Some are
  purchasing value-added services (such as fax gateways) from ADMDs.
  Several project participants have online services available (via
  telnet or over X.25) to translate between X.400 and RFC822
  addresses according to the current mapping rules.
  The exact future of the project is unclear, but it is expected that

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they will continue.  It is likely that the future project will be
coordinated by the RARE Operational Unit and will be contracted
out.
The project team is still working on several projects.  They plan
to have a daily RFC1327 mapping table update tool operational by
the end of this year.  They are working on evaluating publicly
available X.400 implementations.  They plan to produce a catalog of
existing X.400 implementations.  They have done work on evaluating
ADMDs and plan to report on this (verifying connectivity, etc).
They plan to produce a tutorial and overview on RFC1327.  They have
done work on evaluating international X.400 connections, and are
working on tools to automatically process a common statistics
format.  They are also working on a connectivity tool which will be
based on sending mail to echo servers and evaluating the results.
Lastly, they operate a file server with lots of documents.  You can
reach the fileserver via anonymous ftp to host ``nic.switch.ch''.
Discussion:

 -  It was recommended to refer to RFC1292 (a catalog of X.500
    implementations) for X.400 product evaluations.

 -  Will this information on implementations be released as an RFC
    ?

 -  There is a question of liability when producing such
    evaluations.

 -  It was recommended that vender and user comments about
    implementations be placed in separate documents.

c.  Stef reported on the current work of the MHS-MD study group on
ADMD/PRMD naming.  By way of review, Stef covered the history of
connections between the U.S. Internet and commercial email
services.  Vint Cerf was the founder of MCI Mail and then went to
CNRI. He concluded agreements on behalf of the Internet with
MCIMail, ATTmail, G.E. Information Services, and CompuServe (and
possible others) that are ``sender keeps all revenue'' agreements.
There was also discussion about what internal protocols these
services use.  All operate gateways between RFC822 and their
internal protocol.  Several problems were discussed.

 -  If the service is using a poor or nonstandard gateway, then the
    addresses coming out of the gateway are messed up.

 -  People did not know of any connections between U.S. commercial
    ADMDs.

 -  There are no connections between the U.S. Internet X.400
    community and commercial ADMDs.

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Current MHS-MD status.  Commercial ADMDs have been arbitrarily
selecting their own names, and then arbitrarily naming PRMDs under
their ADMD. There is strong feeling that these existing (ADMD,
PRMD) name pairs must be valid in the future.  Any new registration
procedure must support these existing names.  The Group is also
working on a structure for a U.S. ADMD backbone, which does not
mean a specific ADMD. Currently the string ADMD=USBB is being used
to refer to such a structure.  Stef cautioned us that the ``USBB''
name is just a placeholder and is likely to change to some other
(as yet undefined) text string.  PRMD names could then be
registered under this ``ADMD=USBB''. There are still unresolved
questions about how the USBB should be routed and supported.
Stef proposed that the U.S. Internet declare itself as an ADMD.
This could be justified because at present, all the other ADMDs are
self-declared as well.  Stef argued that there is currently no
regulation of US X.400 service providers, so each ADMD is more or
less making up their own rules as they proceed.  Many people are
making lots of assumptions.  One has been that the INTERNET does
not qualify to be an ADMD, and the that other ADMDs would block its
attempt to assert that it is an ADMD.
Discussion:

 -  The issue of connecting to the U.S. ADMDs is not an issue of
    naming, it is an issue of service agreements and charging.  The
    routing can be worked out.

 -  Connections over X.25 will probably be necessary to connect to
    the commercial ADMDs, although many US carriers are moving to
    offer IP service, and to interconnect with the INTERNET.

 -  The Internet ADMD could offer to provide RFC1327 gateway
    services to the commercial ADMDs.  That way the gateways would
    be operated according to existing agreements and
    recommendations and would generate ``good'' addresses.

 -  If the Internet succeeds in defining itself as an ADMD, then
    the other C=US ADMD service providers can no longer use the
    excuse that they ``cannot pass ADMD-ADMD traffic via the
    INTERNET PRMD''.

 -  If the commercial services were interested, the Internet ADMD
    could play a role as a relay between them.  [Note - this would
    not necessarily require commercial traffic to flow across the
    research Internet.]

There was a proposal to decide on the matter at this meeting.
There was heated argument that the issue had not been discussed
before the meeting, and should be discussed more in a wider forum
and on the mailing list.  It was agreed that Stef would write an
internet draft proposing to create an ADMD=Internet [action].  If

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     approved in the future, this paper could evolve into an RFC.
     The Working Group recommended that each country should write an
     Internet Draft describing the national solution for X.400
     addressing of Internet addresses.  Stef's draft could be used as a
     template for other countries' Internet Drafts.  The result will in
     the end be (if the drafts are approved) a series of RFCs.  [This
     paragraph supplied by Alf Hansen.]

   o Future U.S. Internet X.400 organization - not discussed beyond the
     above information.


Second Session


   o Continuation of Connections to ADMDs Discussion.  - Steve H-K.
     proposed generating a document that addresses the issue of ADMDs
     and how they are connected to the R&D world (or ``Internet'' to
     coin a phrase).  The contents of this document should be something
     like:

      -  ADMDs presently connected to the Internet (or R&D world, same
         thing, as I'm talking about the global Internet).

      -  Policy restrictions on such connections ie.  are they available
         for free & for anyone on the Internet, can R&D people relay via
         a connected ADMD to 3rd party ADMDs , etc.

      -  Whether the ADMDs are using RFC 1327 gateways & the global
         mapping tables

      -  Which PRMDs these ADMDs support - ADMD connectivity between
         themselves.  - anything else that fits in to the above context.

     Goals are to:

      -  Stimulate ADMDs to deploy well run ADMD to Internet
         connections, preferably by using R&D operated gateways.

      -  Document the PRMDs reachable via ADMDs and of course the ADMD's
         connectivity to other ADMDs.

     Jim Romaguera (wearing the hat of NetConsult AG, not the Cosine MHS
     Project Team) volunteered to write a draft document [action].
     [notes in this (cont'd) section courtesy of Jim R.]

   o Document Review - in general, detailed comments are not included if
     a new version of the document will be released.
     a.  ``X.400 use of extended character sets'' (Harald Alvestrand).

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Discussion.  Harald will update the document and release the
updated version as an Internet draft [action].  The draft will be
discussed at the upcoming RARE Character Set and RARE Messaging
meetings.  These comments will be presented at the next IETF
meeting, and the document will be finalized.
b.  ``Operational Requirements for X.400 Management Domains in the
GO-MHS Community'' (Hansen/Hagens).  Comments were taken on the
document.  The document will be revised and a new Internet Draft
will be released [action].
There was discussion about what kind of RFC this document should be
released as.  People felt that it should be a requirement that
X.400 domains should support the ``postmaster'' address in the same
manner as RFC822 domains do.  It was proposed that a very short RFC
be drafted which explains the need for supporting ``postmaster''
addresses.  This short postmaster RFC will then be advanced in the
standards track.  Allan Cargille volunteered to write the RFC
[action].  It will use the recommendations from the recent Cosine
MHS Managers meeting as a starting point.  It was pointed out that
to support the introduction of X.400(88), both S=Postmaster and
CN=Postmaster must be supported.
The revised Hansen/Hagens paper cannot be progressed as an RFC
until the Eppenberger routing paper and Cargille Postmaster paper
are also ready to be submitted, because it references those
documents.  The document may also have to be modified based on the
group's recommendations for C=us/ADMD=Internet.
c.  ``Routing coordination for X.400 MHS services within a
multi-protocol/ multi-network environment'' (Urs Eppenberger).
Changes to this document were discussed in light of a recent
submission by Panos Tsigaridas, ``MHS Information Exchange Format''
(MHS-IEF). Panos' paper recommended using the same basic
information and routing algorithm as the Eppenberger document, but
providing a syntax and structure so that this information could be
easily placed into X.500 under well-known places.  Further
information already stored in X.500 could easily be extracted by
tools and translated into the proposed text format.  These text
tables could then by exchanged the ``old-fashioned'' way (E-mail).
The desire to support X.500 must be weighed against the fact that
this new document format is needed immediately and in fact is
already being introduced in the Cosine MHS Project.  Changing the
document format would introduce delays due to discussion and take
longer to become operational.  It was agreed that Urs, Panos, and
Steve H-K. would meet to see if minimal changes could be made to
the Eppenberger document which would make it easier to store the
information in X.500.  Steve reported that they agreed that Panos
would propose a set of detailed ``short term'' change requests to
Urs's document [action].  A revised document should be sent out,
which should be approved via email and then submitted as an
experimental RFC [action].
d.  ``Using the Internet DNS to maintain RFC987/RFC1148 Address
Mapping Tables and X.400 Routing Informations'' (Allocchio, Bonito,

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     & Giordano).  All three tables will be stored under the domain
     ``.x400.arpa''.  Change control will still be centralized -- the
     tables will still be collected and managed by the Cosine MHS
     Project Team.  The use of the DNS tables will be described in a
     separate document [action].  Mapping conventions are used to
     represent the RFC1327 table entries in a format that is legal for
     the DNS. Claudio will produce a new version of the document, and
     distribute it to the DNS and x400ops mailing lists [action].  If
     consensus is reached, the document will be submitted as an
     Experimental RFC.
     e.  OSI area procedures.  Erik Huizer requested that to progress a
     document in the OSI area as an Internet Draft, people should send
     email to Dave Piscitello ([e-mail]), himself
     ([e-mail]) and CC the IESG Secretary Greg Vaudreuil
     ([e-mail]).  [Note - this information should
     probably be sent to all the OSI area working groups.  [action]]
     Erik also reported the following procedures for IETF OSI working
     groups [actions]:

      -  He will create a mailing list for these Working Group Chairs.
      -  He will distribute each message to him from higher IETF people
         to Working Group Chairs (Chairpersons).

     There was also discussion about what classes of RFCs there are.
     RFCs *not* on the standards track can be classified as
     ``Informational'' or ``Experimental''.  RFCs on the standards track
     proceed from ``Proposed Standard'' to ``Draft Standard'' to
     ``Standard''.  [Note - is this documented in an RFC?] It was also
     pointed out that RFCs cannot reference Internet Drafts, but they
     may reference any class of RFC.

   o Major Operation Problem - not discussed.

   o Review of Action Items - deferred to mailing list, due to time.
     See below.

   o Any Other Business, and plan for next meeting - Erik Huizer (OSI
     Area Co-Director) proposed to resume the ``old'' meeting schedule
     for the OSI area at the next IETF. Other than that, the next
     meeting schedule not discussed.  Erik will distribute this new
     schedule [action].
     We decided to have the next x400ops meeting at the next IETF
     meeting in Washington DC, U.S.A., during the week Nov.  16-20,
     1992.


Revised Summary of Action Items


Allan Cargille         Distribute draft Minutes.  - Done.

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Alf Hansen             Revise timetable for documents on new Charter by
                       discussion on the list.
                       Update Operational Requirements document and
                       release as an Internet Draft.
Tony Genovese          Continue to work on a WEP which is accessible
                       over public X.25.
Einar Stefferud        Start discussion on mailing lists about U.S. ADMD
                       naming issues.  - Done.
                       Write an Internet Draft proposing to create
                       ADMD=Internet.
Someone                Email Stef to start this discussion.  - Done.
Jim Romaguera          (NetConsult AG) Generate draft document that
                       addresses the issue of ADMDs and how they are
                       connected to the R&D world.
Harald Alvestrand      Update document on extended character sets and
                       release as an Internet Draft.
Panos Tsigaridas       Provide a set of detailed ``short term'' change
                       requests to Urs' routing document.
Urs Eppenberger        Release revised version of routing coordination
                       document (if there are any changes).  Hopefully
                       get consensus on mailing list about the document
                       and submit as an RFC.
Claudio Allocchio      Produce new version of the X.400 DNS paper and
                       distribute it to the x400ops and DNS mailing
                       lists.  If consensus is reached, submit document
                       as Experimental RFC.
                       Produce new document explaining how the X.400 DNS
                       tables should be used and distribute to x400ops
                       list.
Erik Huizer            Distribute information on the procedure for
                       progressing a document in the IETF OSI area to
                       all area mailing lists.
                       Create a mailing list for IETF OSI area Working
                       Group Chairs.
                       Distribute working group meeting schedule for OSI
                       area for next IETF meeting.



Attendees

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Ed Albrigo               [e-mail]
Claudio Allocchio        [e-mail]
Harald Alvestrand        [e-mail]
C. Allan Cargille        [e-mail]
Chris Chiotasso          [e-mail]
Cyrus Chow               [e-mail]
Alan Clegg               [e-mail]
Curtis Cox               [e-mail]
Richard desJardins       [e-mail]
Tom Easterday            [e-mail]
Urs Eppenberger          [e-mail]
Tom Farinelli            [e-mail]
Osten Franberg           [e-mail]
Jisoo Geiter             [e-mail]
Tony Genovese            [e-mail]
Arlene Getchell          [e-mail]
Alf Hansen               [e-mail]
Steve Hardcastle-Kille   [e-mail]
Erik Huizer              [e-mail]
Takashi Ikemoto          [e-mail]
Kevin Jordan             [e-mail]
Mark Knopper             [e-mail]
Jim Romaguera            [e-mail]
Einar Stefferud          [e-mail]
Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas [e-mail]
Linda Winkler            [e-mail]
Steven Winnett           [e-mail]
Russ Wright              [e-mail]



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