Jill.Foster -- 5 January 1993 http://www.w3.org/Conferences/IETF25/JillFosterTripReport.html -------------------------------------------------------------- IETF Trip Report This report is about 1000 lines long - but is structured to allow you to skip over bits not of interest to you. I started to edit out bits that weren't "NIR" specific - but found bits in discussions of NISI etc that were of potential interest to some of you. You'll probably want to skip most of the Plenary stuff. Best wishes for a constructive year in NIR! -- Jill IETF - Washington: Nov 16-20, 1992 ================================== Trip Report: Jill Foster - Newcastle University, UK Chairman: RARE Information Services and User Support Working Group Introduction ============ The 25th IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Meeting took place in Washington DC from 16th-20th November and was hosted by SPRINT. Silver coloured "25th IETF" buttons were on sale to mark the occasion. The attendance was just under 600, which was down slightly on the Boston IETF. My main reasons for attending (thanks to funding from RARE) were to: o represent RARE Information Services and User Support Working Group (which I chair) [RARE is the Association of European Research Networks] o join in the User Services and associated WG sessions. o co-chair a WG session on networked information retrieval tools. o co-chair a BOF session on network training materials. The following informal report is in note form and deals mainly with the areas of User Support and Networked Information Retrieval, although reports of the plenary sessions are also included. Whilst it is as accurate as I can make it, it is naturally a personal account and may be inaccurate due to lack of background information or misinterpretation of what I heard. Corrections of fact are welcome, but any discussion of items contained here would be best directed to the appropriate mailing lists. Minutes of individual sessions are also available via anonymous ftp from nri.reston.va.us This report will be stored on the UK Mailbase Server. To retrieve a copy, email to Mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk with the following command in the body of the message: send wg-isus ietf.11.92 Alternatively use anonymous ftp to: mailbase.ac.uk file: pub/wg-isus/ietf.11.92 Note: in general I have not expanded acronyms as those readers involved in a particular topic should know them whilst those who aren't familiar with the acronyms should still be able to get a reasonable overview of the topic. All addresses quoted in the report are in internet (rather than UK) order. Each section has a double underlined heading - to enable you to skip sections not of interest. Plenary ======= The plenary sessions and some of the working group (WG) sessions were broadcast (audio and video) over the network. My impression was that this did not go as well as it had done in Boston. There seemed to be more problems - but this was almost certainly because they were being more ambitious. There were many more sites involved and they were attempting to broadcast two parallel sessions simultaneously. Phil Gross welcomed attendees to the IETF and spoke about the problems we're facing with regard to Internet Routing and Addressing. This was the major technical issue at this IETF. These problems are: o scaling issues o Class B exhaustion o Routing table growth o Overall IP address exhaustion. The IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group) had written an RFC (Request For Comment) giving milestones for addressing the various issues. The goal for the November IETF was to narrow the field of IPv7 candidates if possible; to establish firm criteria; to give specific feedback on each candidate based on the selection criteria. Milestones: By December 15: Publish firm selection criteria as RFC and post constructive feedback on candidates. February 12: At least two multiple interoperable implementations. February 26: Second draft of the protocol report (from each candidate) indicating how each of these meets selection criteria. There were technical presentations on the various contenders. PIP (P Internet Protocol) using EIP (Extended Internet Protocol) ---------------------------------------------------------------- - by Paul Tsuchiya (Bellcore). Paul felt that PIP was not mature enough to be chosen at this time. It really needed a year of design/implementation and testing. The question was "was it worth waiting for?". It is a very general protocol that copes with all known routing/addressing paradigms and is relatively efficient - and more importantly - easy to evolve. Various sections of the design had been been specified and there were already some simple implementations of PIP hosts and routers. PIP has been linked with EIPIP (see above). The PIP header would be placed in what looks like an IP option field. TUBA ---- Peter Ford (LANL) and Mark Knopper (MERIT). TCP/UDP over CLNP addressed network. The basic problem is that we're running out of IP address space. We need to allow for >10**7 networks and >2**32 end systems. We need more effective management of the IP address space to expand the lifetime. (The CIDR addressing plans are already going into effect.) TUBA is TCP and UDP with >32 bit addresses. This would allow a hierarchical "sparsely populated" address space. The TUBA transition will focus on the network layer. TCP and UDP will be made to work over CLNP network layer. This will allow the TUBA work to build on the existing CLNP experience. SIP --- Simple Internet Protocol - Steve Deering (Xerox Parc) This is a new version of IP building on the lessons learned from IPv4. SIP uses 64 bit hierarchical addresses. It is more efficient than IPv4 in that it is only examined by identified routers. IP Address Encapsulation: Bob Hinden ------------------------------------ IPAE is intended as a transition mechanism for the new Internet Protocol. They have been working with the SIP WG. Unlike with TUBA - the host software does not need changing. These issues are also discussed in Nov 1992 Vol 6 No. 11 of "Connexions - The Interoperability Report" (ISSN 0894-5926) (Email contact: connexions@interop.com) NISI - Networked Information Services Infrastructure WG ======================================================= Chair: Pat Smith (Merit) This group is concerned with co-ordinating NICs (network information centres) and improving the service they provide. NIC Profile: In order to aid NICs talking to each other, a NIC Profile template had been produced. Chris Weider at Merit had set up a server, which would accept completed NIC Profile Templates and put them into X.500. To find out how to submit a NIC Profile, NIC co-ordinators should email to: X500test@merit.edu Subject: help They will receive the template and instructions on how to complete it. The server auto-adds completed templates emailed to it. The Providers would be responsible for updating the information. Several volunteers agreed to look at up-date mechanisms and to decide on the intended audiences. NETHELP: The idea is that a user will type "nethelp" and be presented with information on how to use the network. This would initially simply be a pointer to local contacts and more information. I again expressed my reservations. (Apart from the obvious problem that the user has to know to type "nethelp" - not terribly intuitive.) The group seemed to assume that the technical people would be able to come up with a solution - so long as NISI could specify what it wanted from nethelp. The vague idea was that maybe this would be some software to be installed on every PC or Mac etc (a daunting task in itself). I felt we should be bringing the technical people into the discussion and to try something. Ed Krol volunteered to knock up a "straw person". This seemed a sensible course of action, especially as NISI has been discussing nethelp for well over a year. Mailing list: nisi@merit.edu To join, mail to nisi-request@merit.edu Also: Mailing list: nic-forum@merit.edu To join, mail to nic-forum-request@merit.edu The latter list is little used. Pat suggested it would be useful to get all NIC personnel on to this list. IAFA: Internet Anonymous File Archive WG ========================================= Chairs: Peter Deutsch and Alan Emtage (BUNYIP) This was probably the last meeting of this Working Group. The draft version of the IAFA document(s): Part I: A Guide to FTP site administration Part II: Publishing Information on the Internet with anonymous ftp had been discussed extensively on the IAFA mailing list. It was agreed that the document should be put forward as a draft RFC. The second of these documents suggests additional information that should be made available on files (etc) in an archive (and about the archive itself). The aim is to provide more information about the purpose and content of files in an archive (other than simply the often meaningless file name) for use by indexing tools such as archie. It was agreed that in parallel several volunteers should look at "iafa-ising" their file archives. It will only be when we try to put these documents into practice that we will see where (if any) the problems are. The next problem will then be convincing new archive sites to provide the additional IAFA information about their archive and individual files - and to add this information for the vast existing base of file archives. Simon Spero volunteered to add IAFA information to the SUN site file archive (sunsite.unc.edu telnet to port 43). Someone said they felt that the first IAFA document was "guidance free" and suggested it needed to outline some "good things to do". These would be recommendations for good practice rather than requirements. Ellen Hoffman (Merit) said that when they put up their anonymous ftp archive they looked around at several others and found that some were definitely easier to navigate around than others. As a result of this they have a check list of good points for archives which they will make available. April Marine (who was unable to attend due to lack of funding) had written an introductory document to anonymous ftp. This had been discussed on the mailing list and was well received. Other suggestions for improvements were made at the meeting. The IAFA document is available from: archives.cc.mcgill.ca in the directory pub/iafa Mailing list iafa@cc.mcgill.ca to join, mail to iafa-request@cc.mcgill.ca POISED (Plenary) ================ POISED = Process Organisation for Internet Standards and Developments Steve Crocker This group was set up as a result of the Boston "unpleasantness" and to answer the questions: who is in charge? who has the right to determine policy and make decisions? etc. According to Steve, it had resulted from the: o IPv7 debate in particular o Poised WG o Real problems o Scaling o Delay in getting things done o Communication difficulties o Surprise o Focus o Burn out Requests to join the mailing list for associated discussion to: poised-request@cnri.reston.va.us The WG will produce an internet draft. There were to be three meetings - this plenary, a working group session and the plenary on the last evening of the IETF. A presentation to the Internet Society trustees was planned for December 10th. Various proposals had been put forward. Maintaining the status quo was an option. POISED Working Group was suggesting that a redefinition and tightening up of the existing structure was now needed. The IETF had grown to the point where a certain amount of rethinking of the structure and procedures was required. The draft proposal was for an Internet Technical Task Force (ITTF) which integrated the IETF, IRTF and IESG back into one community. The Working Groups would continue to remain the main focus and would act as open forums. There would be different types of Working Group: engineering, research and architectural. Working Groups would contain self selecting design teams - which would go away and come up with proposals and bring them back to the main group. This is recognising what happens now in practice. The ITTF leadership would be provided by a Technical Board (consisting of area chairs, ITTF Chair and architects and performing the same role as the current IAB and IESG) an Editor, Process Board and The Internet Society. Procedures for selection of the officials and their acountability needed to be drawn up and there needed to be mechanisms for removing members if necessary. The full details are in the POISED draft RFC. This needed further discussion and if there was concensus in the IETF on it a transition period would see the selection of the various officials. User Services Working Group Chair: Joyce Reynolds =========================== US-WG is the umbrella WG for the various user services area WGs. This is the group which spawns new WGs and coordinates the work in this area. Mailing list for this group: us-wg@nnsc.nsf.net To join, mail to: us-wg-request@nnsc.nsf.net As an aside: two new books written by IETF us-wg people had just hit the book sellers and were very well received. Both are in a very readable format. Ed Krol: The Whole Internet User Guide and Catalog Tracey La Quey Parker: The Internet Companion the latter has a foreword by Al Gore. Newcomers Guide --------------- According to Steve Coya (IETF Secretariat), approximately 40% of attendees at IETF meetings are first-timers. This means that for a significant proportion, getting up to speed is a vital concern. For the first time ever there was a Newcomer's orientation session on the Sunday afternoon before the IETF. There had been much discussion amongst "old" IETF-ers as to what should be included and what needed documenting. Gary Malkin had written a draft FYI RFC for newcomers. (Internet draft: draft-malkin-newcomers-guide-00.txt) This document "Tao of the IETF" was seen to be very useful - and was distributed at the newcomers session. I attended the session out of interest (along with about 100 others). The session was felt to be of use - but was a little pedantic in parts. I felt there was too much emphasis on how to register for an IETF (which most attendees had managed to do!) and not enough on what the various Working Groups were about. This was borne out by the comments of the first-timers at the US-WG meeting. It was suggested that the titles of Working Groups were often not clear enough and that there should be short descriptions of each group and what files were available and where. This information would be best circulated prior to the meeting to give people a chance to get up to speed. Perhaps a pointer to "where to get information" could be given in the IETF meeting announcement. Steve Coya said they were considering doing a survey of the new attendees and this would ask them what their expectations were, etc. Comments on the newcomers session should be sent to: ietf-info@cnri.reston.va.us US-WG also suggested that a guide for new working group chairs would be useful. Internet "Quick and Dirty" Document: Peter Deutsch -------------------------------------------------- Peter had posted a copy of his revised document to the us-wg on the Saturday evening before the IETF. Most people had not had a chance to read it. Suggested title: "A user's catalogue of internet tools". It was currently 8 pages long. It should be reduced to about 2 pages and should contain an overview/introduction. It would be split into: Taxonomy: - The basics (telnet, email, ftp) - Mailing lists and Bulletin Boards (Listserv, Mailbase, usenet) - Interactive Information Delivery (gopher and World Wide Web) - Directory Services (WHOIS, X.500) - Indexing Services (archie, WAIS, online-libraries) Where to go next? - References to other FYIs and books The draft document may be retrieved via anonymous ftp from: archives.cc.mcgill.ca file: pub/uswg/quickanddirty.doc Comments to: Mailing list us-wg@nnsc.nsf.net and to join, mail to: us-wg-request@nnsc.nsf.net RIPE Report: Joyce Reynolds ---------------------------- Joyce mentioned that she'd attended the last RIPE meeting (Association of European IP Networks). She said that the Eastern Europeans in particular are very keen to get all they can in the way of RFCs and Internet Documentation. Some of the RFCs (in particular the FYIs) had been translated into Czechoslovakian. Eastern Europe -------------- Alan Emtage (bajan@bunyip.com) talked about the initiative to send unwanted old editions of computing and networking text books to eastern Europe. The Internet Society is acting as a repository for donations. Alan suggested that individual sites might like to act as network "buddies" to eastern European or 3rd World sites which are just embarking on networking. RARE ISUS WG Report: Jill Foster -------------------------------- The RARE Information Services and User Support WG met in Pisa at the beginning of November, immediately preceding the European Network Services Conference. An "electronic meeting" had also been held in September. I had previously circulated a report to the us-wg mailing list prior to the IETF. The main points covered were: o formation of joint IETF/RARE/CNI WG on networked information retrieval (see later in this report). [CNI - Coalition for Networked Information] o co-ordination and registration of European gophers. o formation of joint IETF/RARE network training materials group. o starting to get librarians involved (very important - particularly in NIR work). o need for a 'Total solution user information' - access to all network services via one GUI as the ultimate goal. o update (Nov) of RARE Technical Report 1 on information services and user support in RARE community [available via anonymous ftp from: mailbase.ac.uk file: pub/rare-wg3-usis/rtr-usis-92 ] There is a need for collaboration and co-operation on user support in Europe and the world. Users can roam the global network so we have "Le 'user' sans frontieres" What we need now is "Le 'user support' sans frontieres" i.e. co-operation on a global scale without worrying about whether we're members of RIPE, EARN, RARE, IETF, etc. Mailing list of ISUS: wg-isus@rare.nl To join, mail to: mailserver@rare.nl the command (in the text of the message): subscribe wg-isus firstname lastname (substituting your own first and last name) FYI 4 and 7 (FAQ): Gary Malkin ------------------------------ FYI 7 "FYI on Questions and Answers: Answers to Commonly Asked 'Experienced Internet User' Questions", (Also RFC 1207), February 1991. FYI 4 "FYI on Questions and Answers: Answers to Commonly Asked 'New Internet User' Questions", (Also RFC 1325), May 1992. Gary wanted to update the new user and experienced user Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) RFCs. He suggested "creating" questions for FYI 4. FIY 7 contains actual questions. FYI 4 is RFC 1177, 1206, 1325: The latest version being RFC 1325 - May 1992. Now need to look at experienced user FAQ (FYI 7). He wanted volunteers to monitor lists and mail in FAQs to quail discussion list. To join the list, mail to: QUAIL-request@XYLOGICS.COM It was suggested that people who had to answer user questions should send in their own "top 5" frequently asked questions. Document: What is the Internet? Ellen Hoffman ---------------------------------------------- Ed Krol had had permission from his publisher to put this together from his book. The draft document was circulated for comment. RFC 1359/FYI16: Connecting to the Internet ------------------------------------------ FYI 16 "Connecting to the Internet: What Connecting Institutions Should Anticipate", (Also RFC 1359), August 1992. This RFC explains what is required to get connected to the Internet and whom to contact. Joyce felt it needed to be expanded and should move away from being US centric. Pat Smith said that the RFC is a good start but that it currently aims at the university community and the Internet is now broader than this. The RFC needs separate sections for universities, schools, individuals at home etc. European input from RIPE and RARE was requested. User Document 2: Ellen Hoffman and Lenore Jackson ================================================= FYI on Introducing the Internet ------------------------------- This was a short bibliography for a complete newcomer on where to get more information on getting connected, etc. The draft will be revised following comments and then recirculated on the user doc mailing list. Comments on Documentation ------------------------- In the past US-WG has kept away from providing end user documentation. Ed Krol said we should stop writing technical documents supposedly for end users. It was suggested (by someone else) that US-WG should not in fact be writing documents for end users - we should leave that to those in the community who write professionally. The fact is that over the last year we have seen documents being produced that are being used by real users. They were all they had - and so better than nothing. There are some good books now written - but it still remains a worthwhile effort to write short end-user oriented jargon-free documents that are freely available - and which could be taken and incorporated into a site's set of end user documents. I personally feel that us-wg should not spend effort in typesetting documentation (as discussed) - but should spend time collecting good short descriptions in ascii text - that a site can take and format in its own house style. We've only made a start in this area and have a long way to go before the documents produced are suitable for end users. Some of the documents overlap and the content and audience are not always obvious from the title. Some rationalisation is required here. Meanwhile sites such as Merit (on nis.nsf.net) are setting up directories called introducing.the.internet with some of these articles which end users are consuming hungrily. Mailing list: user-doc@merit.edu To join the list, mail to: user-doc-request@merit.edu Information Infrastructure: lunch meeting ========================================= The chairs of the Working Groups concerned with various aspects of information retrieval and tools (IIIR, NIR, WNILS, URI, URL) met over lunch to discuss co-ordination of the work of these groups. A statement is to be drawn up to show how these groups inter-relate and what parts of the puzzle they are intended to cover. Note that the NIR Group was set up explicitly to help track the various different groups and projects in this area. It was decided to draw up a list of areas, so that if for example a new tool was developed which effectively indexed information resources - then it would be dealt with by a generic "indexing tool working group" rather than set up a new working group for that application. I personally feel that there needs to be some tightening up of the descriptions and scope of the various working groups. It is not at all obvious to new members (or old!) as to which group deals with what. Some of the descriptions are very similar and some quite misleading. For example: NISI - Network Information Services Infrastructure sounds like it should be concerned with information architecture - whereas it was set up primarily to improve the dialogue between NIC personnel. Training Materials BOF: Ellen Hoffman and Jill Foster ===================================================== The proposal was to form a joint IETF/RARE Working Group on network training materials and the problems associated with network training. The main objectives are: o to provide a comprehensive package of "mix and match" training materials for the broad academic community. o to provide a catalogue of existing training materials. I briefly described the UK NISP/ITTI Training Materials Project (which has very similar aims) and circulated a print out of the catalogue of training materials collected so far. The fields used were based on the TopNode Data Elements - but some more discussion is needed. (Pete Percival and Craig Summerhill of TopNode were at the IETF.) The members of the BOF (Birds Of a Feather) introduced themselves and described their training activities. Many gave presentations to their users on using the network and the networked services, but only a few provided hands on training. Those that were noted that this was very popular and successful. The group agreed to help to produce a catalogue of training materials on using the network (using the TopNode Data elements). CNIDR volunteered to host that database. The group plan to evaluate existing training materials and to identify materials to be produced. Problems related to network training were also discussed. The charter was agreed (with some changes for clarification) and it was proposed that a Training Materials WG be formed. Discussion is to take place initially on the us-wg list. Other "network training" lists are: o the "Internet/BITNET Network Trainers" list NETTRAIN@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu (which is quite "noisy" but nontheless useful) To join, mail to: listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu the command (in the text of the message): subscribe nettrain firstname lastname (substituting your own first and last name) o the UK ITTI Network Training Materials Project email list itti-networks@mailbase.ac.uk To join, mail to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk the command (in the text of the message): subscribe itti-networks firstname lastname (substituting your own first and last name) The Merit/NSFnet Training Sessions included presentations followed by informal hands on workshops. Their Internet Cruise (disk based presentation) was also well known. It had been translated into Spanish: "El Cruso!" Also mentioned were: o The Internet Hunt (a monthly set of questions, the answers to which can be found scattered across the Internet) o Mining the Internet: UC Davis - a hands on workshop o Navigating the Internet. An Interactive Workshop. (Made available over the network and which closed subscriptions at 15,000!). Some sites put information on disk for training session attendees to take away. This information ranged from: Zen and the Art of the Internet to the various directories of information and mailing lists. Networked Information Retrieval WG ================================== Co-chairs: Jill Foster, George Brett This is a joint working group between the IETF, RARE ISUS WG and CNI. George Brett reported on the $1.2M funding from NSF for a new Clearing House for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR). George Brett is Director, Jane Smith is Assistant Director. Jim Fullton will be working as their programmer. Given the current concerns about the reliance of the community on software tools developed by volunteer effort and the pressure being brought to bear on some of these volunteers by their employers - the setting up of a centre for support was welcomed. I reported on the RARE ISUS WG meeting and the sessions concerned with NIR. The Pisa conference had sessions on WAIS, WWW, gopher, archie, Soft Pages and Hyper-G. ISUS WG members have agreed to co-ordinate informally the European gophers and to work on subject specific gophers. This work and discussion is progressing in co-operation with the IETF/CNI groups and TopNode Project, Library of Congress and some Australian gopher people. Since the Boston NIR BOF, the templates, for collecting information about groups involved in NIR work and about the various NIR tools and applications, had been agreed on the nir mailing list. The information on most of the groups and tools had been collected from the appropriate contacts and had been edited together into a draft document which had been made available prior to the IETF. Access details: anonymous ftp from mailbase.ac.uk file name: pub/nir/consumer.report At the meeting the draft of the "Consumer Report" on NIR Tools was reviewed and discussed at length. There was discussion about the tools and the groups that have been included in the report. It was suggested that Hyper-G and Soft Pages should not be in the main part of the report. An appendix of "Forthcoming Attractions" was suggested and it was felt that a short description of Hyper-G and Soft Pages and WHOIS++ would be appropriate there. A number of other appendices were recommended to provide a broader base of information for the users and providers of the information. The templates and the report were well received. It is planned to update the templates on a quarterly basis. The working group also discussed future plans to evaluate the tools, and the general usefulness of this report. This "evaluation" was seen more as completing a matrix of characteristics on each tool - so that the "consumer" could check for the features required and see which tools provided them. The evaluation would therefore be an objective checklist rather than of the "best buy" variety. The working group concluded its work with a discussion about future dissemination of the report in varied media. There was consensus that the report will have to be made available across the many networked information retrieval tools and that we will have to be prepared to ensure that the form of the information accommodates these tools. One of the first online archives for the "Consumer Report" on NIR Tools will be hosted at CNIDR. The working group will continue to collect and verify information for the templates. The nir list is currently hosted at McGill and needs to be moved. All subscribers should now subscribe to the list on the UK Mailbase server. list: nir@mailbase.ac.uk to join: mail to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk the command (in the text of the message): subscribe nir firstname lastname (substituting your own first and last name) For example: subscribe nir Jill Foster archives in directory: pub/nir on mailbase.ac.uk An announcement will also be made on the existing nir list. Uniform Resource Indicator WG: Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage ========================================================= URI is now the union of Uniform Resource Location and Uniform Resource Indicator. The idea is to identify information resources uniquely and to allow the location of these by navigational tools. Tim Berners Lee (who was unable to attend due to lack of funding etc) had adapted one of his WWW documents to discuss URIs. There was some discussion of this (which was a little one sided as Tim wasn't there to defend it). There was some objection to the use of "name" in the document and some discussion on "fragmentation" and whether to allow partial form URIs. The group felt the document should have an overview section that could be read on its own. This should define the various acronyms (URI, URL, URN, URSN, etc). It was felt that there should be the Berners-Lee document and then a document putting the counter arguments. Input from the library community is needed and the overview document will be circulated widely - including to the CNI. mailing list: ietf-url@merit.edu to join, mail to: ietf-url-request@merit.edu [I'm not sure which list is currently being used - but mail to ietf-url-request and ask to be put on the list for URI discussion!] WHOIS and Network Information Look Up Service Working Group: WNILS: ====================================================================== Joan Gargano This group had met as a BOF at the last IETF. It had been a stormy meeting with the X.500 set saying why re-implement X.500 features in WHOIS when X.500 does it all and the WHOIS set saying - "why not? Maybe we can do it quicker and with less overheads." Since the last IETF Jim Fullton, Peter Deutsch, Chris Weider and others had worked on implementing a WHOIS++ Server and had some prototype software working. The WHOIS++ project aims to develop a lightweight useful Internet Directory Service using simple technology. Features o template oriented data model o simple command syntax o database technology selected by operator o "centroids" system allows summary information to be easily propagated Advantages o Easy to use o Servers easy to create, install and maintain o database maintenance separate from server (allows using existing database) o clients easy to write o centroids simplify the task of finding suitable servers Structure of WHOIS++ database (logical) Template type 1 type 2 type 3 etc --------- ---------- ---------- | 1 | | | | | --------- | ---------- | ---------- | | 2 | | | | | | | | --------- |-- ----------- |-- ----------- |-- | 3 | | | | | | | | | |-- | |- | |- | | | | | | --------- ----------- ----------- Every item and each database has a unique WHOIS database handle (issued by IANA). Search terms: "handle", template type, attribute. The work the sub-group was doing was a proof of concept piece of work. Architecture: Client ---> Front End | V Search Engine ----> optional gateway \ \ --> database Centroid: Centroid information propagates up the tree. Clients can query parent servers to find servers with given keywords. Keywords stored only once and just hold pointers. Can search at any level. Bottom up driven approach to finding information. Command Set: o Template oriented o backwards compatible with WHOIS o system commands and search commands o search command: Attribute, Value, Template or Handle, Search All o Constraints on searches Status since Boston: o Bar BOF in Boston o Joan Gargano's overview document o Peter Deutsch's basic architecture o Chris Weider etc centroids architecture (sent to list - are in archive) o WNILS working group now formed o Centroids propagating: 2 running now, more to come. o Public domain version. Then supported by BUNYIP. Clients - X-Windows, etc. o Centroid code written Chris Weider: Centroids: "forward" information propagated around. A poll mechanism allows the server to get forward information from below. Servers know what it is being polled by and can let server "above" know when information is changed. So a user can query any level in the mesh and the query is passed to the point in the tree where it is most likely to be answered. Don't need to know where or how servers/data distributed in order to be able to prune search tree and find information want/looking for. With a distributed mesh it is easy to build Yellow Pages services. A server can specialise on a particular attribute. Having got a rough prototype - what's next? They talked about privacy and security issues, replication of servers etc. There are currently 100 WHOIS servers which don't talk to each other. WHOIS++ would help to provide some glue between their servers and encourage new servers. It started to sound all too familiar: Problems of replication and security; The massive problem of getting the data in the database - All problems X.500 has been faced with. We'll have to see whether WHOIS++ fares any better. Peter Deutsch likes to talk about Darwinian selection! Integration of Internet Information Resources Working Group (IIIR): ====================================================================== Chris Weider The purpose of this working group was to start to pull together some of the applications (WAIS, gopher, archie) and to work on interoperability issues, what new tools should do and to discuss gateway protocol design. Several people were asked to report on the work they were doing in this area. Tim Howes and gopher/X.500 gateway: This was proving popular with some 2000 queries/day to the UMichigan directory via the gopher/X.500 gateway. (This is 2000/day out of 15000/day total queries at U Michigan). Various other sites are running such gateways too. Tim said people don't want WAIS, archie, gopher or X.500 - they want information and they don't want to flip clients to get different information. [Agreed! Neither do they want to swop tools to change from searching to browsing.] Peter Deutsch: WHOIS++ Peter talked about WHOIS++ (see above) and the possible use of Prospero to provide user centred views of the information (as Prospero currently does for archie). Jim Fullton: WAIS Jim had been working with NASA. They have satellite data accessible via WAIS. A user can choose the format for display. Gopher has no concept of different formats. The main problem was gatewaying from the "maximal" WAIS server to the "minimal" gopher world. The group decided to write an Internet draft on: Gateway Protocol, common exchange format and query routing protocol. A registry of gateways would be useful too. We need to avoid an explosion of protocols that are basically the same. (One of the aims of the NIR report is to help contain this explosion by disseminating information about what is already available.) We need "classes" of protocols - with one working group per class. It was stated that we're not a closed community and that we should bring in the information retrieval people, the IRTF group on information retrieval (Mike Schwartz etc) and the librarians. A mailing list was not mentioned for this group. However enquiries could be sent to ietf-url-request@merit.edu Concluding Remarks ================== This IETF seemed more hectic than normal with more Working Groups and meetings over dinner and lunch. There was unfortunately little time for general conversations or (for me) to attend the Mail and Directories Working Group meetings. Shortly before the IETF - the closure of the Automatic Mailing List Server WG was announced. I had understood it had been put on hold, so was disappointed to hear this. On a positive note: the CNI held their meetings near Washington at the end of the same week as the IETF. Several key CNI members attended the IETF and there was to be cross representation at the CNI meetings too. George Brett and Alan Emtage had set up meetings at the Library of Congress. OCLC and the Library of Congress are working on classifying or cataloguing networked information resources. The TopNode Project is looking at doing this too - but are, I believe, taking a different approach. This was an opportunity for these people to get together and to start mutual discussions. So - I feel that this IETF and the events surrounding it saw another significant milestone on the road to bringing order to the chaos as far as networked information is concerned. We still have a long way to go in satisfying end users of course. We still have the plethora of different tools - but at least we're all starting to pull in approximately the same direction. Finally, a reminder that these notes are my view of the IETF. They may not be an accurate view, and certainly do not cover the wide range of topics discussed at the workshop. Apologies for the delay in getting this report out. I went straight from the IETF to Australia to take part in their Networkshop and to look at some of their network training, returning shortly before Christmas; but that's another story.... Jill Foster (Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk) 28.12.92 >From nir-request@kona.cc.mcgill.ca Tue Jan 5 11:51:34 1993 Received: from kona.CC.McGill.CA by othello.admin.kth.se (5.65+bind 1.8+ida 1.4.2/4.0b) id AA28539; Tue, 5 Jan 93 11:51:32 +0100 Received: by kona.cc.mcgill.ca (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA24001 on Tue, 5 Jan 93 04:41:40 -0500 Received: from cheviot.ncl.ac.uk by kona.cc.mcgill.ca with SMTP (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA23997 (mail destined for /usr/lib/sendmail -odq -oi -fnir-request nir-out) on Tue, 5 Jan 93 04:41:36 -0500 Received: from eata.ncl.ac.uk by cheviot.ncl.ac.uk id (5.65cVUW/NCL-CMA.1.35 for ) with SMTP; Tue, 5 Jan 1993 09:41:33 GMT Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 09:41:30 GMT From: Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk Subject: NIR list moving To: nir@cc.mcgill.ca Cc: nir@mailbase.ac.uk Message-Id: Status: RO Attention all list members!! Way back in November - Alan Emtage, Peter Deutsch and I discussed moving the nir list from McGill to Mailbase at Newcastle. This was agreed at the IETF meeting in Washington. (I've been on the road or on holiday since - so have only just got back to it.) The McGill list should be used until an announcement that the new list is operational. The reasons for moving; o McGill may not be willing to host the list now that Alan and Peter have "moved" to BUNYIP. o Members had to be added to the list by hand and therefore when Alan or Peter were busy/travelling this could cause delays. o There was no way of seeing who else was on the list. The list is now "global" - so hosting it in the UK rather than Canada isn't a problem. Mailbase is an automatic mailing list server. It requires your name as well as your email address (taken from your message header) in order to produce a meaningful list of members. As the McGill list does not have your names (only email addresses) - you will need to subscribe to the new list. Apologies for the hassle! to join: mail to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk the command (as the only text of the message): subscribe nir firstname lastname (substituting your own first and last name) For example: subscribe nir Jill Foster Message archives and files associated with nir will be in directory: pub/nir on mailbase.ac.uk They may be retrieved via email or anonymous ftp. Please subscribe now while you remember. Mail for NIR should be sent to the McGill list until you see an announcement on the two lists saying that the move is complete. Mail to the new list should then be sent to: nir@mailbase.ac.uk Thanks for your patience and cooperation. -- Jill Foster (NIR WG chair) >From nir-request@kona.cc.mcgill.ca Tue Jan 5 21:00:54 1993 Received: from kona.CC.McGill.CA by othello.admin.kth.se (5.65+bind 1.8+ida 1.4.2/4.0b) id AA10382; Tue, 5 Jan 93 21:00:47 +0100 Received: by kona.cc.mcgill.ca (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA27629 on Tue, 5 Jan 93 12:24:13 -0500 Received: from att-out.att.com by kona.cc.mcgill.ca with SMTP (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA27623 (mail destined for /usr/lib/sendmail -odq -oi -fnir-request nir-out) on Tue, 5 Jan 93 12:23:57 -0500 Message-Id: <9301051723.AA27623@kona.cc.mcgill.ca> From: egrimmelmann@attmail.com Date: 5 Jan 93 16:51:16 GMT To: com-priv@uunet.uu.net, disi@merit.edu, members@farnet.org, ietf@cnri.reston.va.us, nir@cc.mcgill.ca, nisi@merit.edu, osi-ds@cs.ucl.as.uk, wais-talk@think.com Cc: london@attmail.com (Shelly London ), estradas@nic.cerf.net (Susan Estrada ), scottw@nic.ddn.mil (Scott Williamson ), dmitchel@nsf.gov (Don Mitchel ), steve@nsf.gov (Steve Wolff ) Received: from egrimmelmann by attmail; Tue Jan 5 17:16:05 GMT 1993 Phone: 908-234-6798 Fax-Phone: +1 908 234 7655 Subject: NSF Directory/Database Award Content-Type: Text Status: RO We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this announcement; it is posted to several news groups ====================================================== AT&T PRESS RELEASE For further information: Shelly London 908 221-4355 FOR RELEASE JANUARY 5, 1993 AT&T Will Provide Directory & Database Services to the National Science Foundation NSFNET Basking Ridge, NJ--AT&T announced today that it has signed a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation to provide directory and database services for NSFNET, the National Science Foundation national data network that is part of the Internet. The Internet is comprised of more than 5,000 computer networks that facilitate collaboration among members of the research and education community. The Internet, and in particular NSFNET, is projected to serve as a basis for evolution to the National Research and Education Network (NREN). Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T will develop and maintain a Directory of Directories which will serve as a pointer to numerous resources on the Internet. It will include lists of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, lists of various types of servers available on the Internet, lists of white and yellow pages directories, library catalogs and data archives. The Directory of Directories will enable even novice users to obtain references to information they need through simple, easy to use interfaces. AT&T also will provide white and yellow pages type directory services, such as names of users, organizations and resources on the Internet, using X.500 technology, the current standard specification for distributed information storage and retrieval. As part of its database services, AT&T will establish database servers to extend and supplement the resources of the NSFNET, including databases of contributed materials of common interest to the user community and communications documents. AT&T also will offer database design, management and maintenance services to organizations and groups for inclusion in the Internet. Initially, access to all services will be provided through several currently popular in-use interface methods; with time, it is anticipated that X.500 will become the primary method of access. In providing these services, AT&T will work cooperatively with two other organizations: CERFNet, a General Atomics project, which was awarded a similar agreement for information services, and with Network Solutions, Inc.(NSI), which was awarded a similar agreement for registration services. The three corporations will collaborate under a common concept called INTERNIC. "We all feel intuitively that the domestic Internet and the distributed collaboration that it facilitates are rapidly creating a national 'workplace without walls'", said Steve Wolff, Director, Division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure, NSF. "These three awards to geographically dispersed organizations for Network Information Services will both exploit and demonstrate the success of the network in enabling distributed collaboration." "These directory and database services are essential components of the emerging national information infrastructure," said Erik Grimmelmann, Marketing Director, Internet/NREN, AT&T Data Communications Services. "This agreement marks an important step for the Internet as well as for AT&T because services such as these and the related ones to be provided by our INTERNIC collaborators will make the Internet even more useful than it is today." The cooperative agreement is for a five-year period, with annual reviews. It is expected that the NSF will contribute approximately one third of the costs, with another third provided by AT&T and the remainder recovered in user fees. The user fees, which have been proposed for maintenance of special databases and extensive directory listings, are consistent with Federal Networking Council (FNC) cost recovery guidelines. The user fees were part of AT&T's proposal, which was evaluated by an NSF review panel and approved by the NSF. The full text of the NSF statement on INTERNIC user fees is included at the end of this release. The agreement is a natural extension of AT&T's strong commitment to education, research and the advancement of high-speed data networking. For example, AT&T operates XUNET (Experimental University Network), a high speed experimental research network for the academic community, and is a key participant in the CNRI (Corporation for National Research Initiative) sponsored BLANCA gigabit testbed. AT&T also supports collaborative applications research projects of direct relevance to the Internet, including an information retrieval service, an image retrieval service and a newly developed directory concept called "nomenclator" that has been shown to improve response time tremendously when searching large directories. ## Text of NSF statement on user fees: Consistent with FNC guidelines on obtaining reasonable cost recovery from users of NREN networks, the NSF has determined that the INTERNIC Information Services provider may charge users beyond the U.S. research and education community for any services provided. Also, the INTERNIC Directory and Database Services provider may charge a fee for maintenance of special databases, for extensive directory listings and may charge users beyond the U.S. research and education community. Finally, because the registration function provided by the INTERNIC Registration Services applies to domestic and international, commercial and individual users in addition to research and educational users, it is expected that an appropriate registration fee structure will take time to develop. NSF expects to engage in an extensive discussion with the domestic and international Internet community on the motivation, strategy and tactics of imposing fees for these services during the next fifteen months. Decisions will be implemented only after they have been announced in advance and an opportunity given for additional public comment.