INTERNET ENGINEERING STEERING GROUP (IESG) 14 July 1994 Reported by: John Stewart, IESG Secretary This report contains IESG meeting notes, positions and action items. These minutes were compiled by the IETF Secretariat which is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NCR 8820945. For more information please contact the IESG Secretary at . ATTENDEES --------- Bradner, Scott / Harvard Coya, Steve / CNRI Halpern, Joel / Newbridge Networks Huizer, Erik / SURFnet Klensin, John / UNU Knowles, Stev / FTP Software Mankin, Allison / NRL Mockapetris, Paul / ISI O'Dell, Mike / UUNET Reynolds, Joyce / ISI Rekhter, Yakov / IBM (IAB Liaison) Rose, Marshall / DBC Schiller, Jeff / MIT Stewart, John / CNRI Topolcic, Claudio / BBN Regrets ------- Huitema, Christian / INRIA (IAB Liaison) This was a single-topic meeting on IPng. 0. Administrivia ACTION(Bradner, Mankin): Send the IAB and IESG a preview of the foils to be shown Monday morning. There will be an IESG dinner on Sunday evening at 20:15 (after the reception) in the Cosmopolitan Room. Note that this is the same room made available to the IESG on mornings throughout the week. There is an IAB meeting on Sunday afternoon, and Yakov will ask about extending an invitation to Allison and Scott for an IPng briefing. ACTION(Rekhter): Ask IAB about Scott and Allison attending the Sunday afternoon IAB meeting. 1. IPng Security The IPng Area Directors have stated, and the Area Directorate has agreed, that IPng security should be "real" from the outset: it should be the default case rather than the exception. The IPng Area Directors reviewed a list of security-related items (some of which will be included in the Monday morning talk at the Toronto IETF). Some of the issues are in the process of | being solved, while others are longer-term problems. The important point is that IPng will *not* preclude a secure Internet layer. 2. Fixed vs. Variable-length Addresses The IPng Area Directors reported that there seems to be rough consensus that a 16-byte fixed-length address is wide enough to do "good things" for the near future (e.g., increase the number of hosts, allow for scalable routing, etc.). However, the possibility of paradigm changes in the future has caused some people to recommend variable-length addresses. The IESG felt that the use of variable-length addresses in a very, very large internet seems to be a research question, so an IPng with a fixed-length 16-byte address with an option for using variable-length seems to be the best compromise. | 3. End-point Identifiers The IESG felt that EIDs are not "ready for prime time," but that should not preclude the community from discussing the issue as a research question. 4. Future Organization and Life-time of IPng Working Group(s) and Area The IPng Area Directors reported that the issue of chairs of the IPng Working Group is not yet stable enough to discuss. After the IPng Area Directors make their recommendation, the IPng Working Group will be formed in the IPng Area. At about the same time, the IPng-candidate working groups (CATNIP, SIPP, and TUBA) will be moved into the Internet Area, if they | wish to continue their work. After the IPng Working Group | submits documents to the IESG, and the IESG approves them as a Proposed Standard, the IPng Area will be dissolved, and the IPng Working Group will be moved into the Internet Area. | While the IPng Area is still active, there will be an "IPng Inquisitor" who will make sure that the appropriate questions get asked, and the appropriate outreach is done. Approximately two weeks after the end of the Toronto IETF meeting, there will be an IPng meeting with attendance from the IAB, IESG, and other involved parties. This meeting will be multicasted on the MBone. ACTION(Mockapetris): Work out the logistics information for the IPng meeting. Because of all of the architectural issues relating to the IPng work, the IAB's participation is being encouraged in general throughout all of these proceedings. However, Yakov Rekhter will be relaying three specific issues to the IAB for discussion: - What is the IAB's position on the contentious issues (e.g., addressing, EIDs, etc.)? - A request for an architectural review of the details contained in the IPng recommendation. - Does the IAB want to author an architecture document as a companion for the protocol specifications? The IESG's current view on how the documents should progress to their entrance onto the standards track is as follows: - the IPng Area Directors will write an RFC summarizing the directional recommendation that they will make on Monday morning in Toronto - after returning from Toronto, a month to month-and-a-half long Last Call will be issued on the IPng Area Directors recommendations - comments received from the Last Call will be collected in an archive - the IESG and IAB would reply to the comments - when appropriate, the IPng Working Group's documents will be approved by the IESG as a Proposed Standard