Subject: Next steps for CAT

From: "Linn, John" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 10:16:12 -0400

CAT fanciers:

I've not yet heard from the IETF Secretariat about scheduling of a CAT
session for the Washington, DC IETF (8-12 November), but will update the
list as further information is available.  The WG mailing list has been very
quiet since the Oslo meeting, and I hope that we can achieve closure on as
many items as possible before the conclusion of the DC meeting. Based on
currently reported plans for draft revisions, and comparing against the WG
milestones list at http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/cat-charter.html, my
current understandings (and embedded questions) regarding potential
standards-track actions are as follows:

(1) We've decided not to pursue standards-track advancement for
authorization documents, though these may become candidates for Experimental
RFC publication.

(2) The apparent sense of the group regarding low-infrastructure mechanism
definitions is to pursue standards-track advancement of LIPKEY.  A revision
to draft-ietf-cat-lipkey-01 is needed, per discussion noted in Oslo minutes.
Question: will this upcoming revision be sufficient and suitable for WG
Last-Call? 

(3) The GSS Java bindings specification, gssv2-javabind-02, is to be revised
within the I-D submission window which closes on 22 October, and discussion
is intended for the DC meeting.  Advancement of this document is a
recognized priority. It was proposed at the Oslo meeting that discussion of
SPI requirements be undertaken before advancement of gssv2-javabind, but
this discussion has not yet proceeded on the list.  Question: should
progress of gssv2-javabind remain serialized on pending SPI discussion, or
should it proceed towards WG Last-Call in the absence of such discussion?

(4) Per discussion at Oslo, revisions are pending to both pk-init and
kerberos-revisions; given that these documents are related, it was
considered appropriate for a concurrent WG Last-Call to be undertaken once
suitable versions of both documents are available. 

(5) Two other Kerberos-related drafts, kerberos-extra-tgt-02 and
kerberos-set-passwd-00, have been posted since the Oslo meeting but have
received limited discussion on the mailing list.  Question: Does
constituency and consensus exist for progressing the contents of these
documents on the standards track and, if so, how should this be pursued
relative to the ongoing development of kerberos-revisions?

(6) An SPKM-related draft, ecdh-spkm-00, has been posted since the Oslo
meeting but has not yet been discussed on the mailing list.  Question: does
constituency and consensus exist for progressing this document on the
standards track?

--jl
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---

From: Mike Eisler <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 08:25:30 -0700 (PDT)

> Question: will this upcoming revision be sufficient and suitable for WG

Possibly. However I think there should be at least one working prototype
before issuing last call. I wanted to have one of those prototypes in time for
IETF in DC, but a comedy of obstacles have gotten in they way. While writing
LIPKEY code is easy, since LIPKEY is layered over SPKM, a working SPKM is
needed. The SPKM code I have worked several years ago, but software rot has
delayed resuscitation.

	-mre

---

From: "Jack Kabat" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 12:01:48 -0700

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Linn, John
> Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 7:16 AM
> To: 'CAT-WG List'
> Subject: Next steps for CAT
>
>
> CAT fanciers:
....
> (3) The GSS Java bindings specification, gssv2-javabind-02, is to
> be revised within the I-D submission window which closes on 22 October,
> and discussion is intended for the DC meeting.  Advancement of this
> document is a recognized priority. It was proposed at the Oslo meeting
> that discussion of SPI requirements be undertaken before advancement of
> gssv2-javabind, but this discussion has not yet proceeded on the list.
> Question:
> should progress of gssv2-javabind remain serialized on pending SPI
> discussion, or should it proceed towards WG Last-Call in the absence
> of such discussion?

I think that the two documents should be de-coupled and JGSS should progress
without being held back by the SPI document. I see the following reasons for
this:

1) Advancing the JGSS document would provide the application developers an
API to build with their applications. I look at the SPI as an interface for
the JGSS layer developers which does not involve the JGSS application
writer. The SPI is the plumbing under the JGSS. Creating an SPI mechanism
will change the JGSS implementation, but should not effect the APIs
available to the application developer. If desired, one could update the
JGSS package without needing to change their application level code.

2) One can implement a JGSS package without using SPIs. The C-Bindings does
not specify a formal SPI layer which has not prevented its implementation.

3) I think we are close to closure on the few remaining issues w.r.t JGSS. I
have not seen much review of the SPI document, and think it might be still
quite some time before it reaches the same level as JGSS.

Regards,

Jack Kabat