IETF 75, Stockholm, July 26-31 — Guide to Hot Topics

ISOC MONTHLY NEWSLETTER | July 2009 | ISOC’s Rough Guide to IETF 75’s Hot Topics

 
IETF 75 in Stockholm is rapidly approaching (26-31 July). With almost 120 working groups (WGs) active in eight IETF areas (not to mention the BoFs, plenaries, IAB, IRTF, and other work) there is a lot to try to keep up with. So once again the Internet Society’s Standards & Technology team, with help from our Trust & Identity colleagues, has prepared a rough guide to some of the most interesting developments and discussions on the agenda, as they relate to the Internet Society’s current activities.
 

We hope this guide will be helpful to those who are attending the meeting as well as those who will follow remotely. Remember, although the physical meetings provide excellent opportunities for informal contact, in formal terms they are no more important than the mailing list discussions which are continuous and open to all.

In line with our own priorities at the Internet Society, we’ve selected working groups, BoFs, plenaries, and other events in the following broad categories:

• Global Addressing
• Common and Open Internet
• Security and Stability
• Trust and identity

All times listed are local (Stockholm, UTC+2). Check agendas for updates as the meeting progresses.

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Global Addressing

As P2P and VoIP technologies become more prevalent, and network usage patterns sometimes deviate from their architects’ expectations, managing bandwidth to allow best use for customers becomes an increasingly important topic.
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alto (Application-Layer Traffic Optimization)
The alto WG is chartered to design and specify a service that will provide P2P applications with information to perform better-than-random initial peer selection. This service may take different approaches at balancing factors such as maximum bandwidth, minimum cross-domain traffic, lowest cost to the user, and others. Full charter.

IETF 75 is shaping up as an opportunity for the community to discuss the newly-merged solution proposal and associated drafts. Agenda.
(28 July, 13:00-15:00)

ledbat (Low Extra Delay Background Transport)
As mentioned in previous rough guides, ledbat is chartered to produce a congestion control algorithm that simultaneously saturates the bottleneck link in an end-to-end path, maintains low delay, and (most importantly) yields to standard TCP. Such a congestion control algorithm, if used by bandwidth-intensive applications (such as P2P data transfer applications), would enable the simultaneous use of real-time communication applications (such as voice-over-IP) without noticeable problems. Full charter.

At the time of writing, there was no agenda for this WG. However, a draft solution has been published and IETF 75 presents another opportunity for community feedback and discussion.
(29 July, 13:00-15:00)

MPTCP (Multipath TCP) BOF
Multipath TCP is a proposed new IETF activity to add the capability to use multiple connection paths in a single TCP connection. The availability of multiple connection paths and the capability to dynamically schedule traffic between them allows more flexibility and efficiency in Internet congestion control, in addition to other benefits. Agenda.
(30 July, 09:00-11:30)

Technical Plenary – Network Neutrality
The Internet Architecture Board has arranged this important plenary session to discuss network neutrality and place it within the IETF context by presenting the network neutrality debate and its implications to the IETF community. Agenda.
(30 July, 17:00-19:30)

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Common and Open Internet

There is steadily increasing momentum to deploy IPv6 as the IPv4 address pool approaches depletion. While much work is ongoing to support interoperability in coexisting IPv4 and IPv6 network environments, there are also interesting developments in emerging IPv6 environments.
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6lowpan (IPv6 over Low power WPAN)
The 6lowpan WG deals with the use of IPv6 over low powered networks (such as sensornets). This is protocol development for devices on “the Internet of Things”. The basic concept in 6lowpan is that IP may become a unifying layer for low powered devices for interoperability, potentially over the Internet. 6lowpan is intensely focused on developing the protocols to enable this to happen. Full charter.

During IETF 75, there will be detailed discussions of each of these protocols with a particular focus on advancing the specification for neighbor discovery using IPv6 for these kind of low-powered, limited bandwidth, and limited connectivity type of devices. Agenda.
(28 July, 09:00-11:30)

6man (IPv6 maintenance)
This WG is home for discussions of improvement and maintenance of the IPv6 protocol suite. Full charter.

Topics at IETF 75 will include a canonical representation of IPv6 addresses, and ongoing work to update the IPv6 node requirements document (RFC4294). Agenda.
(29 July, 13:00-15:00)

behave (Behavior Engineering for Hindrance Avoidance)
While behave was chartered to create mechanisms for transiting NATs in reliable ways, most of its activity is now focused on protocol translation from IPv4 to IPv6 in a number of different scenarios. Of particular interest in these scenarios is how the proposed mechanisms deal with DNS operation across the two protocol realms (and whether it is possible to maintain any kind of reasonable operation of secure DNS in such a scenario). Full charter.

Five hours have been scheduled for behave at IETF75, with an agenda full of discussions on these protocol translation discussions. There will also be a discussion on issues with large scale NATs (which have been proposed by some as a means of extending the life of IPv4). It remains to be seen whether such proposals in this context have enough benefits to outweigh the new set of operational limitations they impose on existing networks. Agenda.
(27 July, 09:00-11:30; 28 July, 09:00-11:30)

softwire (Softwires)
The softwires WG looks at discovery, control, and encapsulation methods for connecting IPv4 networks across IPv6-only networks and IPv6 networks across IPv4-only networks in a way that will encourage multiple, inter-operable vendor implementations. Full charter.

At the time of writing, the softwires agenda had not been posted, but look out for topics relating to shared addressing. Expect discussion of the dual-stack-lite architecture and protocol proposal which may become an important transition mechanism for IPv6 deployments.
(29 July, 09:00-11:30)

v6ops (IPv6 Operations)
The v6ops WG exists to discuss operational issues in deployment of IPv6. Full charter.

In the four hours of meeting time scheduled at this meeting, v6ops will explore a number of important issues. Of particular interest are discussions of how some IPv6 tunnels are considered harmful and the requirements for IPv6 CPE devices. There is also a discussion planned of an incremental carrier grade NAT for facilitating transition to IPv6. Agenda.
(28 July, 13:00-18:10)

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Security and Stability

Securing the DNS and greater assurance in routing is critical for the ongoing expansion and evolution of the Internet in all areas of our societies and economies.
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Securing the DNS Panel
ISOC’s Securing the DNS panel is not an IETF event, but will help take some of the important work of the IETF to a broader audience. Featuring speakers from .SE, ICANN, IAB, ISOC, PIR, and Verisign, the panel will highlight the opportunities flowing from a more secure DNS. This panel is now fully booked, but there will be a live audiocast (also archived for future reference). More details.
(28 July, 11:45-12:45)

dnsext (DNS Extensions)
This working group is involved in developing a wide range of functional extensions to the DNS. dnsext also tracks the DNS implications of the behave WG. Full charter.

Since dnsext did not meet at IETF 74, its agenda is larger than usual, mostly concerned with security issues. Three drafts to be discussed propose new algorithms for DNSSEC, one of which is a Russian national standard. There are also five drafts proposing security improvements to DNS other than DNSSEC, which remain unresolved from last year. Another draft under consideration proposes a mechanism for a validator to signal the server which algorithms it supports. Agenda.
(29 July, 13:00-15:00)

DNSOP (Domain Name System Operations)
The dnsop WG works on various operational aspects of the Domain Name System. Full charter.

Some of the new drafts in dnsop include a trust history tracker to help DNSSEC validators catch up if they miss trust-anchor changes, as well as a description of dns-redirect (which is controversial because it involves recursive resolvers returning modified – not authoritative – answers under certain circumstances documented in this draft). Agenda.
(27 July, 09:00-11:30)

savi (Source Address Validation Improvements)
The savi WG is chartered to design methods for IP source address validation that complement ingress filtering with finer-grained protection. Full charter.

Although the agenda has not been posted, there is an open discussion from IETF 74 about the savi charter, specifically whether a proposed development (preventing hosts from using unassigned IP addresses) would amount to a charter extension.
(30 July, 09:00-11:30)

sidr (Secure Inter-Domain Routing)
The sidr WG working group is chartered to formulate an extensible architecture for an inter-domain routing security framework. Full charter.

The sidr agenda for Stockholm ranges across revisions of the ongoing drafts on the RPKI architecture, Route Origin Authorization, certificate policy, RPSL with RPKI signatures, and a new draft of use cases for RPKI objects. Agenda.
(30 July, 09:00-11:30)

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Trust and identity
As public concerns increase about security of infrastructure, privacy, trust, and identity on the Internet, these themes recur in several working group discussions.
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ogpx (Open Grid Protocol) BoF

This BoF is proposing a WG to provide an application-layer wire protocol for virtual worlds to enable interoperability between applications, provide for access and exchange with other systems on the internet, and allow network layers to recognize VW traffic and make routing decisions based on its characteristics. It’s of particular interest to ISOC’s Trust and Identity work because of the proposed use of TLS and OAuth for origin authentication. Charter proposal.
(28 July, 15:20-17:00)

oauth (Open Authentication Protocol)
OAuth allows a user to grant a third-party Web site or application access to their resources, without necessarily revealing their credentials, or even their identity. Full charter.

This recently chartered WG will not meet formally at IETF 75, but a “Bar BoF” has been tentatively scheduled for  Wednesday 29 July, 7:30am. Recently submitted drafts and the Google OpenID/OAuth projects are likely topics of discussion.

dkim (Domain Keys Identified Mail)
The DKIM working group will produce standards-track specifications that allow a domain to take responsibility, using digital signatures, for having taken part in the transmission of an email message and to publish “policy” information about how it applies those signatures. Full charter.

In Stockholm, the dkim WG will focus on next steps, as well as update to RFC4871 will be discussed. There is also interest both in stream lining the current feature set and in gathering data on usage.
(28 July, 13:00-15:00)

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Also watch out for…
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lisp (Locator/ID Separation Protocol)
The lisp WG working group is chartered to produce an experimental protocol that separates identifiers and locators. Full charter.

In Stockholm, lisp will discuss ongoing refinement of the experimental protocol specification and explore some ideas about how to provide functionality to support it. Agenda.
(27 July, 13:00-15:00)

rrg (Routing Research Group)
The Routing Research Group (rrg) is an IRTF WG exploring routing and addressing problems that are important to the development of the Internet but are not yet mature enough for engineering work within the IETF. Full charter.

Again, no agenda is yet available. This group has been discussing strategies for dealing with routing in the future Internet, particularly the growth of routing and forwarding tables in the medium term and ways to mitigate growth outrunning the ability for current hardware technology to keep up.
(31 July, 09:00-15:15)

Transport Area Open Meeting
This is an open meeting for the Transport Area of the IETF. There is typically novel and stimulating work on the agenda and this meeting is no exception. Several presentations will deal with http, the protocol that powers the web. These include improvements to enhance the end-user experience during the transition to IPv6 (’Happy Eyeballs’) and to improve web browser capabilities when dealing with mirrored information services. Agenda.
(27 July, 15:20-17:20)