Subject: [Ietf-behave] Re: WG Action: Behavior Engineering for Hindrance Avoidance (behave)

From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 08:32:43 -0700 (PDT)

Great news!

Thanks to Cullen and Jiri for taking the lead on this and doing a good 
job in getting it organized and started.

-Jonathan R.

The IESG wrote:

A new IETF working group has been formed in the Transport Area. For additional 
information, please contact the Area Directors or the WG Chairs.

Behavior Engineering for Hindrance Avoidance (behave)
=====================================================
Current Status: Active Working Group

CHAIRS: Cullen Jennings <fluffy@xxxxxxxxx>
Jiri Kuthan <jiri@xxxxxxxxx>
Transport Area Director(s):
Allison Mankin <mankin@xxxxxxx>
Jon Peterson <jon.peterson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Transport Area Advisor:
Jon Peterson <jon.peterson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
MAILING LISTS:
General Discussion: ietf-behave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To Subscribe: ietf-behave-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with subscribe in body
Archive: http://list.sipfoundry.org/archive/ietf-behave
DESCRIPTION:

Given the current near-universal deployment of NATs (Network Address
Translators) in the public Internet, the lack of standards for NAT behavior has
given rise to a crisis. While it is widely acknowledged that NATs create
problems for numerous Internet applications, our inability to describe
precisely what a NAT is or how it behaves leaves us few solutions for
compensating for the presence of NATs.
The behavior of NATs varies dramatically from one implementation to another.As
a result it is very difficult for applications to predict or discover the
behavior of these devices. Predicting and/or discovering the behavior of NATs is
important for designing application protocols and NAT traversal techniques that
work reliably in existing networks. This situation is especially problematic for
end-to-end interactive applications such as multiuser games and interactive
multimedia.
NATs continue to proliferate and have seen an increasing rate of deployment.
IPv6 deployments can eliminate this problem, but there is a significant interim
period in which applications will need to work both in IPv4 NAT environments
and with the IPv6 to IPv4 transition mechanisms.
This working group proposes to generate requirements documents and best
current practices to enable NATs to function in as deterministic a fashion as
possible. It will consider what is broken by these devices and document
approaches for characterizing and testing them. The NAT behavior practices
will be application independent. The group will also advise on how to develop
applications that discover and reliably function in environments with NATs
that follow the best current practices identified by this working group. The
group will consider the security implications (or non-implications) of these
devices.
The work will be done with the goal of encouraging eventual migration to
IPv6 and compliance with the UNSAF [RFC 3424] considerations. It will not
encourage the proliferation of NATs.
The behavior that will be considered includes IP fragmentation and
parameters that impact ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP, MLD, and multicast. The proposed 
WG will
coordinate with v6ops, midcom and nsis. The work is largely limited to
examining various approaches that are already in use today and providing 
suggestions
about which ones are likely to work best in the internet architecture. 
Discussion
will start from several existing drafts or RFCs, including:
draft-jennings-midcom-stun-results
draft-audet-nat-behave
RFC 3489
draft-ford-midcom-p2p
Goals & Milestones

Mar 05 - Produce a BCP document that describes the usage of protocols like STUN
for performing black-box testing and characterizing NAT behavior
May 05 - Produce a BCP that defines unicast UDP behavioral requirements for NATs

Jul 05 - Any revisions to STUN required by other WG deliverables

Sep 05 - Produce a BCP that defines TCP behavioral requirements for NATs

Nov 05 - Produce a BCP that defines basic ICMP behavioral requirements for NATs

Dec 05 - Produce a BCP that discusses protocol design techniques for using the
existing set of NAT traversal approaches
Jan 06 - Close WG or recharter

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Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.                600 Lanidex Plaza
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