Technical Summary
This document defines the PA-TNC protocol. PA-TNC is a Posture
Attribute protocol that carries posture attributes between a
Posture Collector on a NEA client and a Posture Validator on a NEA
server. The PA-TNC protocol is designed to run over the PB-TNC
protocol. PA-TNC is equivalent to the Trusted Computing
Group's IF-M 1.0 protocol. It addresses the PA protocol requirements
defined in the NEA requirements specification.
Working Group Summary
The WG solicited proposals for the PA protocol based on the
NEA reference model and requirements specified in RFC 5209. The TCG
submitted a specification to the NEA WG in response to the call for
proposals. There was broad support in the WG to adopt the submission as
a WG document. Subsequent WG updates to the document have not been
contentious.
The protocol document specifies a base protocol and is extensible.
The WG has discussed the potential for certain optimizations and
extensions to the above specifications (e.g. additional standard
posture attributes). The proposed extensions did not share the same
level of consensus as the base document and represented significant
additional work. The WG decided to defer potential extensions to
supplemental documents in the interests of making progress on the base
documents.
Document Quality
Several vendors have indicated their intention in public or private to
implement the specification.
Personnel
Susan Thomson is the document shepherd. Tim Polk is the responsible
Area Director.