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n-1-1-040.20a
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N-1-1-040.20 Internet Engineering Task Force Report,
by Phillip Gross* <pgross@NRI.Reston.VA.US>
This is the first report on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
in an Internet Society publication. Therefore, I'd like to start by
saying how exciting it is for the Internet Engineering Steering Group
(IESG) and IETF to be part of the formation of a new professional
society concerned with something very important to us all -- the
global communications network called the Internet. The IETF has
played a key role under the Internet Activities Board (IAB) in many
important Internet development activities. We all look forward to
working within the Internet Society in the future.
Since this is an initial report on the IETF, I feel it is important to
give an overview of the IETF, how it operates, and how to become more
involved in the open IETF activities. I will also give a brief report
on the most recent IETF meeting, which took place in November 1991 in
Santa Fe New Mexico, USA.
IETF Overview
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the protocol
engineering, development, and standardization arm of the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB). The IETF began in January 1986 as a forum
for technical coordination by contractors for the U.S. Defense
Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA), working on the ARPANET, U.S. Defense
Data Network (DDN), and the Internet core gateway system. Since that
time, the IETF has grown into a large open international community of
network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with
the evolution of the Internet protocol architecture and the smooth
operation of the Internet.
The IETF mission includes:
1. Identifying and proposing solutions to pressing operational and
technical problems in the Internet,
2. Specifying the development (or usage) of protocols and the
near-term architecture to solve such technical problems for
the Internet,
3. Making recommendations to the IAB regarding standardization
of protocols and protocol usage in the Internet,
4. Facilitating technology transfer from the Internet Research Task
Force to the wider Internet community, and
5. Providing a forum for the exchange of information within the
Internet community between vendors, users, researchers, agency
contractors, and network managers.
Technical activity on any specific topic in the IETF is addressed
within Working Groups (WG). All Working Groups are organized roughly by
function into nine technical areas. Each is led by an Area Director
who has primary responsibility for that one area of IETF activity.
Together with the Chair of the IETF, these nine technical Directors
(plus, a director for Standards Procedures) compose the IESG.
The current Areas and Directors, which compose the IESG, are:
IETF and IESG Chair: Phill Gross/ANS
Applications: Russ Hobby/UC-Davis
Internet: Noel Chiappa/Consultant
Philip Almquist/Consultant
Network Management: James Davin/ MIT
OSI Integration: David Piscitello/Bellcore
Ross Callon/DEC (retiring)
Operational Requirements: Susan Estrada/CERFnet
Phill Gross/ANS
Bernard Stockman/Nordunet
Routing: Robert Hinden/BBN
Security: Steve Crocker/TIS
Transport and Services Dave Borman/Cray Research
User Services Joyce Reynolds/ISI
Standards Management: Dave Crocker/DEC
The IETF has a secretariat, headquartered at the Corporation for
National Research Initiatives in Reston Virginia, with the following
staff:
IETF Executive Director: Steve Coya
IESG Secretary: Greg Vaudreuil
IETF Coordination: Megan Davies
Administrative Support: Debra Legare
Cynthia Clark
The Working Groups conduct business during plenary meetings of the
IETF, during meetings outside of the IETF, and via electronic mail on
mailing lists established for each group.
The IETF holds 4.5 day plenary sessions three times a year. These
plenary meetings are composed of Working Group sessions, technical
presentations, network status briefings, WG reporting, and an open
IESG meeting. A Proceeding of each IETF plenary is published, which
includes reports from each area, each WG, and each technical
presentation. The Proceedings includes a summary of all current
standardization activities.
Mailing Lists
Much of the daily work of the IETF is conducted on electronic mailing
lists. There are mailing lists for each of the Working Groups, as
well as a general IETF list. Mail on the Working Group mailing lists
is expected to be technically relevant to the Working Groups supported
by that list.
To join a mailing list, send a request to the associated request list.
All internet mailing lists have a companion "-request" list. Send
requests to join a list to <listname>-request@<listhost>.
Information and logistics about upcoming meetings of the IETF are
distributed on the general IETF mailing list. For general inquiries
about the IETF, send a request to ietf-request@isi.edu. An archive of
mail sent to the IETF list is available for anonymous ftp from the
directory ~ftp/irg/ietf on venera.isi.edu
On Line IETF Information
The Internet Engineering Task Force maintains up-to-date on-line
information on all its activities. There is a directory containing
Internet-Draft documents and a directory containing IETF working group
information. All this information is available in identical format
for public access at several locations globally. (See below for
locations.)
The "IETF" directory contains a general description of the IETF,
summaries of ongoing working group activities and provides information
on past and upcoming meetings. The directory generally reflects
information contained in the most recent IETF Proceedings and Working
Group Reports.
The "Internet-Drafts" directory makes available for review and comment
draft documents that will be submitted ultimately to the IAB for
standardization and/or submitted to the RFC Editor to be considered
for publishing as an RFC. Comments on Internet-Drafts from the wider
Internet community (i.e., in addition to those attending the WG
sessions at the IETF plenaries) are strongly encouraged and should be
addressed to the responsible person whose name and electronic mail
addresses are listed on the first page of the respective draft.
The IETF Directory
Below is a list of the files available in the IETF directory and a
short synopsis of what each file contains.
Files prefixed with a 0 contain information about upcoming meetings.
Files prefixed with a 1 contain general information about the IETF,
the working groups, and the internet-drafts.
FILE NAME
0mtg-agenda the current agenda for the upcoming quarterly IETF
plenary, which contains what Working Groups will be
meeting and at what times, and the technical
presentations and network status reports to be given.
0mtg-logistics the announcement for the upcoming quarterly IETF
plenary, which contains specific information on the
date/location of the meeting, hotel/airline
arrangements, meeting site accommodations and travel
directions.
0mtg-rsvp a standardized RSVP form to be used to notify the
support staff of your plans to attend the upcoming IETF
meeting.
0mtg-schedule current and future meeting dates and sites for IETF
plenaries.
1id-abstracts the internet drafts current on-line in the
internet-drafts directory.
1id-guidelines instructions for authors of internet drafts.
1ietf-overview a short description of the IETF, the IESG and how to
participate.
1wg-summary a listing of all current Working Groups, the working
group chairmen and their email addresses, working group
mailing list addresses, and, where applicable,
documentation produced. This file also contains the
standard acronym for the working groups by which the
IETF and Internet-Drafts directories are keyed.
Finally, Working Groups have individual files dedicated to their
particular activities which contain their respective Charters and
Meeting Reports. Each Working Group file is named in this fashion:
<standard wg abbreviation>-charter.txt
<standard wg abbreviation>-minutes-date.txt
Using FTP, the "dir" or "ls" command will permit you to review what
Working Group files are available.
The Internet-Drafts Directory
The Internet-Drafts directory contains the current working documents of
the IETF. These documents are indexed in the file 1id-abstracts.txt in
the Internet-Drafts directory.
The documents are named according to the following conventions. If the
document was generated in an IETF working group, the filename is:
draft-ietf-<std wg abrev>-<docname>-<rev>.txt , or .ps
where <std wg abrev> is the working group acronym, <docname> is a very
short name, and <rev> is the revision number.
If the document was submitted for comment by a non-ietf group or author,
the filename is:
draft-<org>-<author>-<docname>-<rev>.txt, or .ps
where <org> is the organization sponsoring the work and <author> is
the author's name.
For more information on writing and installing an Internet-Draft, see
the file 1id-guidelines, "Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts".
Directory Locations
The directories are maintained primarily at the NSFnet Service Center
(NNSC). There are several official "shadow" machines which contain the
IETF and INTERNET-DRAFTS directories in identical format. These
machines may be more convenient than nnsc.nsf.nsf. (Plus, there are
numerous "unofficial" sites, that may also be more convenient for
specific users.)
To access these directories, use FTP. After establishing a connection,
Login with username ANONYMOUS and password GUEST. When logged in,
change to the directory of your choice with the following commands:
cd internet-drafts
cd ietf
Individual files can then be retrieved using the GET command:
get <remote filename> <local filename>
e.g., get 00README readme.my.copy
IETF Directory Locations
NSF Network Service Center Address: nnsc.nsf.net
The Defense Data Network NIC Address: nic.ddn.mil
Internet-drafts are also available by mail server from this
machine. For more information mail a request:
To: service@nic.ddn.mil
Subject: Help
NIC staff are happy to assist users with any problems that they
may encounter in the process of obtaining files by FTP or
"SERVICE". For assistance, phone the NIC hotline at
1-800-235-3155 between 6 am and 5 pm Pacific time.
Pacific Rim Address: munnari.oz.au
The Internet-drafts on this machine are stored in Unix
compressed form (.Z).
Europe Address: nic.nordu.net (192.36.148.17)
*Advanced Network and Services