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RE: [Isms] ISMS charter broken- onus should be on WG to fix it

2005-09-13 13:31:17
Hi,

Personally, I'd rather see the issue of working through NATs and
firewalls solved at the SSH level, and then SNMP and other SSH-using
applications, such as Netconf and CLI, could use the solution in a
consistent manner. 

The O&M community has gone through a multi-year effort to better
understand operators' needs in network management. That effort started
years ago at an Open O&M meeting. 

Bert and David are tentatively planning another Open O&M meeting at
IETF64. Since the O-side draws more operators than the M-side of O&M,
it might be worthwhile asking the operators that are present at that
meeting if they believe this is an important problem to solve at the
SNMP level, and whether they would prefer it be solved at the SSH
level.

David Harrington
dbharrington(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net

-----Original Message-----
From: isms-bounces(_at_)lists(_dot_)ietf(_dot_)org 
[mailto:isms-bounces(_at_)lists(_dot_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Juergen 
Quittek
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 8:36 PM
To: Eliot Lear; Sam Hartman
Cc: isms(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org; IETF Discussion; iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: [Isms] ISMS charter broken- onus should be on WG 
to fix it

Eliot,

At the SBSM and ISMS BoF sessions at IETF 58 and 60 the need for
integrating SNMP into existing security frameworks was extensively
discussed.  Wes presented the issue at NANOG and performed a survey
among operators.  The output of all this work is the idenitfication
of a well founded general requirement for working on the integration
of SNMP into existing security frameworks in an IETF working group.

Now you claim that solving this issue is technically wrong without
considering a different problem that you call "call home".  Rather
you request adding the issue of solving the "call home" to the ISMS
charter.

However, nobody raised this issue at the ISMS BoFs nor has the
issue been discussed in depth in the OaM area.  But we should have
such a discussion before adding the issue to any IETF WG charter.
It looks like a good topic for a BoF session in the OaM area.
There we could find out the relevance of the problem and discuss
requirements for potential solutions.  Also there we can identify
which working group would be the right one to deal with the issue.

But until then, I propose that we let the ISMS group work on solving
its original problem.

Thanks,

    Juergen


--On 9/12/2005 9:53 PM +0200 Eliot Lear wrote:

Sam,

I believe the approach you have proposed is quite simply 
wrong.  As an
AD you're supposed to provide technical oversight and not 
simply hold a
popularity contest.  If you have technical questions or wish to
challenge me on a technical point, I think that's fair game.

As I've written, the path we are headed down technically 
will not work
in the face of firewalls and NATs, and nobody has refuted this.

Furthermore you've heard from a reasonably large customer 
(Boeing) as
well as your predecessor on the prevalence of such middle boxes
that
demonstrates the complexity of today's environment and the 
need for this
sort of functionality as part of the solution.

You've heard from an author of SNMP that the major 
architectural change
is the use of session based security and NOT CH, the same from the
former O&M AD and IETF chair.  You've heard from a service 
provider as
well as numerous members of the community who see the problem.

You may or may not have yet heard from other standards 
bodies but if you
were to delay it is quite possible they will chime in since one
was
specifically interested in this sort of function.

The amount of changes required to support CH cannot fully 
be ascertained
until more of the the [Todo]s are filled in with Dave's draft, but
I
don't imagine the work would be much more than:

 - specifying how to initiate the connection and if 
necessary turn it
 - the identity used for requests received from command 
generators that
   did not initiate the connection along with potential 
prepopulating
   of various tables
 - an appendix of how the SNMP-TARGET-MIB would be populated
 - a discussion on when to initiate connections and what to do
when
   they fail (mind you this is needed anyway regardless of CH)
 - security considerations involving firewalls, blocking, etc.
 - possibly one additional table describing the state of SSH peer
   connectivity (which probably wouldn't be bad to have anyway).

Decide for yourself if you think this is a substantial 
amount of text,
but I won't leave it to your imagination for long.  I will 
attempt this
week to post a derivative of the draft that Dave is working 
on to give
people an idea of what the changes would be.

Again it's difficult to diff an incomplete specification.

Eliot

"Eliot" == Eliot Lear <lear(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> writes:


    Eliot> I request an extension of the deadline for comments to
    Eliot> September 21st on the following basis:

    Eliot>  - the period of comment has been less than a week,
far
    Eliot> shorter than the normal period of IETF-wide 
review.  - of
    Eliot> the time allotted, the principle instigator of 
this review
    Eliot> has been absent from debate for five days due to prior
    Eliot> commitments.  That was me.

Hi, Eliot.  I have not made any determination as yet about 
whether I
will pull ISMS from the Thursday telechat and am unlikely to make
a
final determination until the time of that telechat.


When I originally ruled call home out of scope I gave you some
suggestions for how to approach things from a process 
standpoint.  In
evaluating your request I will consider how much progress has
been
made on these issues so far and on whether it is likely 
that you could
make additional progress on these issues by September 21.

Let us go back and consider my original advice to you:

  When the charter is sent to me for IESG review, ask me 
to send it out
  for external review (IETF wide) rather than just 
approving it; I will
  honor such a request.  You will need a proposal ready to 
present to
  the community when the charter comes out for review.  
The proposal
  should include proposed modifications to the charter to 
make call home
  in scope.  In addition you probably want to answer the
following
  concerns:

  * People believe that architectural changes to SNMP 
should happen in
    the management not security area.  Either convince 
them that this is
    OK in the security area, propose moving the working group, or
    propose splitting the work appropriately.

  * Address the concerns about the lack of MIBs and other 
facilities for
    managing call home.  Have a proposal ready for what is 
involved in
    doing the work.


  * Understand concerns Bert is likely to raise and 
respond to them.



so, here are some specific questions related to our 
progress to date
on these items.  Answering these questions will help me determine
whether extending the review period to September 21 is likely to
be
productive.

1) Have you proposed a specific set of charter changes?  Who has
   supported these charter changes?

2) How have you addressed the specific concerns about the 
location of
   the work ?  Who has agreed with your proposed resolution?

3) Is there a consensus emerging that CH needs to be 
solved as part of
    ISMS?  This is the part where additional time is most likely
to
    help you, but I think it fair to ask who has supported
blocking
    ISMS on CH so far.  Note that people who support CH but who
    believe it could be done in a separate working group 
or who have
    not expressed an opinion do not count.  They may well count
for
    justifying support for a CH BOF or for justification of a
    publication request for an individual submission 
adding CH to the
    SNMP architecture.


4) What response have you given to concerns about whether the
   architectural extensions for CH are sufficiently well 
defined?  Who
   has supported this proposal?



5) How are your discussions going with Bert to resolve his 
concerns?
    What about other key members of the management 
community who have
    expressed concerns?



Here's how I'm going to make a decision.  I believe that 
in order to
get a change to the SNMP charter it is necessary to make 
significant
progress on all of these issues.  I'm going to evaluate 
your answers
and consider whether I think the progress to date makes it 
likely that
you will have sufficient support for a new charter by September
21
without significant opposition.  In other words whether 
the community
and IESG can agree to the new charter by the end of the 
review period.
If the progress to date makes it likely that we're headed in that
direction, I'll grant the request.  Otherwise I will ask 
the IESG to
approve the charter on Thursday.


There's an internal issue that may well prevent the 
charter from being
announced before the 21st even if no formal extension is granted.


--Sam




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