Network Configuration (netconf)

In addition to the charter maintained by the IETF Secretariat, there is additional information about this working group on the Web at: Additional NETCONF Web Page

Description of Working Group

Configuration of networks of devices has become a critical requirement
for operators in today's highly interoperable networks. Operators from
large to small have developed their own mechanisms or used vendor
specific mechanisms to transfer configuration data to and from a
device, and for examining device state information which may impact
the configuration. Each of these mechanisms may be different in
various aspects, such as session establishment, user authentication,
configuration data exchange, and error responses.

The NETCONF Working Group has produced a protocol suitable for
network configuration, with the following characteristics:

- Provides retrieval mechanisms which can differentiate between
configuration data and non-configuration data
- Is extensible enough so that vendors can provide access to all
configuration data on the device using a single protocol
- Has a programmatic interface (avoids screen scraping and
formatting-related changes between releases)
- Uses an XML-based data representation, that can be easily
manipulated
using non-specialized XML manipulation tools.
- Supports integration with existing user authentication methods
- Supports integration with existing configuration database systems
- Supports multiple (e.g. candidate and running) data-stores to
optimize configuration preparation and activation
- Supports network wide configuration transactions (with features such
as locking and rollback capability)
- Runs over a secure transport; SSH is mandatory to implement while
TLS, BEEP, and SOAP are optional transports.
- Provides support for asynchronous notifications.

The NETCONF protocol has been designed independent of the data
modeling language. The IETF recommends to use YANG as the NETCONF
modeling language, which introduces advanced language features for
configuration management.

In the current phase of the incremental development of NETCONF the
workgroup will focus on following items:

1. Netconf Access Control Model (NACM) Requirements and Solution.

There is a need for standard mechanisms to restrict
NETCONF protocol access for particular users to a pre-
configured (by operator) subset of all available NETCONF
operations and content.

The WG will produce a document which identifies the access
control requirements specific to the NETCONF protocol, as
defined in [4741bis]. This document will also provide a
standard YANG data model which addresses these
requirements.

It is possible that the WG will not reach solution consensus
on every possible requirement identified in the document.
In this case, it is expected that the solution will evolve
over time to meet the the remaining unmet requirements.

2. The NETCONF server may want to notify interested clients about
particular NETCONF protocol/server events. The WG will work on
a NETCONF specific YANG module(s) to define suitable
notifications.

3. As implementation and deployment experience gained with the
NETCONF monitoring data model, the WG may revise the NETCONF
monitoring data model to add additional objects that can be used
to check the status of the server and to discover additional
information about the server implementation. The WG may choose
to revise the NETCONF monitoring data model.

Goals and Milestones