IETF Nomcom S. Krishnan
Internet-Draft J. Halpern
Intended status: Informational Ericsson
Expires: January 24, 2013 July 23, 2012
Requirements for IETF Nominations Committee tools
draft-krishnan-nomcom-tools-02
Abstract
This document defines the requirements for a set of tools for use by
the IETF Nominations Committee.
Status of this Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 24, 2013.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Meta requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Security and Access Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Nominations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Acceptances and Declines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. Questionnaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. Feedback Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
10. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
12. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Appendix A. Example for key generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
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1. Introduction
The IETF Nominations Committee (Nomcom) is a body that selects
candidates for the open IESG, IAB and IAOC positions following the
process outlined in [RFC3777]. There is a need for a set of tools to
aid the Nomcom to operate efficiently. This document lays out a set
of requirements for such a tool.
1.1. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
2. Meta requirement
There is an existing tool for supporting Nomcom work. The set of
requirements specified in this document are mainly enhancement
requirements or behavior changes to the existing tool. Unless
otherwise stated all of the current functions of the existing Nomcom
tool need to be supported in the new tool as well.
o META-001: The tool MUST provide all the functionality that is
provided by the current Nomcom tool except in the cases where one
of the requirements specified in this document overrides the
current behavior. The current Nomcom tool can be found at the
following URLs; https://www.ietf.org/group/nomcom/2012/private/
that displays the Nomcom private parts of the tool (Private Nomcom
tool) and https://www.ietf.org/group/nomcom/2012/ that displays
the community member accessible parts of the tool (Public Nomcom
tool).
3. Authentication
All access to the Nomcom tools needs to be authenticated. The users
of the tools have different privileges based on their role. The tool
needs to support at least three levels of access:Community member,
Nomcom member, Nomcom chair. The levels of access are setup by the
staff of the IETF Secretariat. It is to be noted that the
Secretariat staff do not have any access to the tool. They are
responsible for administering the server that the tool runs on and
hence they setup the access control list for the tool.
The Community member access is applicable to the Public Nomcom tool.
The Nomcom member and the Nomcom chair access are applicable to the
Private Nomcom tool, as Nomcom members can use the interfaces on the
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Public Nomcom tool in the community member role. The Nomcom chair
access authentication applies to the private webpage in the same
fashion as a Nomcom member, with the additional ability to update the
information on both webpages (i.e., what is visible in the various
forms, the templates for the automatic emails, etc.).
o AUTH-001: The tool MUST allow the members of the community to
login with their existing datatracker.ietf.org credentials.
o AUTH-002: The tool MUST allow the members of the community to
create a new login using the datatracker.ietf.org login system.
o AUTH-003: The tool MUST allow the secretariat to input an email
address to be granted the Nomcom chair role and a list of email
addresses to be granted the Nomcom member role.
4. Security and Access Control
All communication between the community and the Nomcom and amongst
the members of the Nomcom needs to be stored in an encrypted form.
This information can only be accessed by the members of the Nomcom.
o SEC-001: The security procedures for the tool MUST be structured
so that even system administrators do not have routine or
accidental visibility to any data accumulated by the tool. This
data includes all confidential feedback and discussions.
o SEC-002: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to input a public
key ("Nomcom public key"). This key is generated by the Nomcom
chair independent of the tool, for example, using the procedure
described in Appendix A.
o SEC-003: All communication sent to the Nomcom mailing list MUST be
encrypted with the Nomcom public key before being committed to
persistent storage.
o SEC-004: All community feedback entered using the Nomcom tool MUST
be encrypted with the Nomcom public key before being committed to
persistent storage.
o SEC-005: After logging in, the tool MUST allow the Nomcom members
to input a private key ("Nomcom private key") that corresponds to
the Nomcom public key. This key will be used to decrypt the
feedback/communications that the member is trying to access. Once
entered, this key MUST be available for the entire length of the
session until the user logs out. This private key MUST NOT be
stored in plaintext form into persistent storage at any point of
time.
o SEC-006: The tool MUST provide a mechanism for the Nomcom Chair to
destroy all the data collected by the Nomcom at the end of the
Nomcom's term. Since the Nomcom's term overlaps with that of the
next year's Nomcom, the tool MUST ensure that the data collected
by the next year's Nomcom is not affected by this deletion.
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5. Nominations
After the Nomcom is consituted, the Nomcom chair issues a call for
nominations for the open positions. There are two broad ways in
which nominees are introduced into the system. The predominant way
is that the nominations can be entered into the system directly by
members of the community. The secondary way is that the nominees are
entered in by the members of the Nomcom. The main difference is that
members of the Nomcom can enter nominatios that are originated by
other community members. In both of the cases an email address for
the nominee needs to be entered into the tool. Please note that
Nomcom members usually use the Public Nomcom tool, and not the
Private Nomcom tool, to enter their personal nominations and
comments.
o NOM-001: The tool MUST allow the members of the community to enter
nominations into the Public Nomcom tool.
o NOM-002: The tool MUST allow the members of the Nomcom to enter
nominations into the Private Nomcom tool. The tool MUST allow the
Nomcom member to optionally enter information about the originator
of the nomination. The tool MUST record the identity of the
originator (if known) of the nomination for audit purposes. Note
that anonymous nominations are allowed, and thus the actual
identify of an originator may not always be entered into the tool.
o NOM-003: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to specify the
information that is required for the nominations. This
information will be entered by the Nomcom chair as freeform text,
and will be presented to the individual performing the nomination.
o NOM-004: The tool MUST email the nominee after the nomination
mentioning the position(s) that they have been nominated for.
This email MUST NOT disclose to the nominee the identity of the
person who performed the nomination.
o NOM-005: The tool MUST allow the content of this email to be
customized by the Nomcom chair.
o NOM-006: The tool MUST automatically attach the questionnaires for
the positions for which the nominee has been nominated to this
email.
o NOM-007: The tool MUST be able to identify duplicate nominations
of the same person with the same email address and consolidate
them to point to the same nominee.
o NOM-008: In case the same person has been nominated multiple times
using different email addresses the tool MUST allow the Nomcom
chair to mark duplicate nominations of the same person and
consolidate them to point to the same nominee.
o NOM-009: The tool MUST allow the setting of a communication email
address for a nominee that is different than the email address
with which they were nominated.
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o NOM-010: The tool MUST be able to use the datatracker address book
system as the basis for requirements NOM-007, NOM-008, and NOM-009
but MUST allow the Nomcom chair to perform manual overrides.
o NOM-011: The tool MUST keep track of the accept and decline status
for the nominees.
6. Acceptances and Declines
After receiving the nomination mail, the nominees usually respond to
indicate either their acceptance of the nomination or their
unwillingness to do so.
o AD-001: The tool MUST allow the nominees to indicate their
acceptance or decline of their nomination. This is preferably
done by providing distinct hyperlinks in the email that the
nominees receive.
o AD-002: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to point to email
responses from the nominees and flag them as acceptances or
declines.
o AD-003: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to manually flag
nominees as accepting or declining without the need for any
nominee action.
o AD-004: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom members to view the list of
all nominees along with their acceptance or decline status.
o AD-005: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom members to view reports of
acceptance or decline status both per nominee as well as per open
position.
o AD-006: The tool MUST be configurable to send reminder mails to
all nominees who have not responded, either on specified dates or
at specified intervals. The contents of the reminder mails MUST
be customizable by the Nomcom chair.
o AD-007: The tool MUST be able to generate a summary report
containing statistics (total/accept/decline/no response)
concerning nominations by position.
7. Questionnaires
The nominees fill in a questionnaire for each of the positions for
which they accept a nomination. The filled in questionnaire is sent
in by email to the Nomcom mailing list. If a person has been
nominated for multiple positions they may elect to send in a combined
questionnare for a subset (or all) of the positions (QR-002) or fill
up one questionnaire per open position (QR-006).
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o QR-001: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to enter a different
questionnaire for each of the open positions.
o QR-002: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to point to email
responses from the nominees and flag them as questionnaires.
o QR-003: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom members to directly access
the filled in questionnaires of the nominees.
o QR-004: The tool MUST keep track of the questionnaire receipt
status for the nominees. The filled in questionnaires are
received as emails to the Nomcom mailing list.
o QR-005: Like all other correspondance on the Nomcom mailing list,
the filled in questionnaires MUST be encrypted by the Nomcom
public key before being stored.
o QR-006: The Nomcom chair MUST be able to flag an email as the
filled in questionnaire for a nominee corresponding to a specific
open position.
o QR-007: Once flagged, the questionnaire provided by the nominee
for a specific position MUST be directly accessible without
needing to look through all the other feedback received for that
nominee.
8. Feedback Collection
Community feedback is very important in the Nomcom process.
Community feedback about the nominees is the primary mechanism by
which the Nomcom members evaluate the nominees.
o FB-001: The tool MUST allow the members of the community to enter
feedback about any of the accepting nominees into the Public
Nomcom tool.
o FB-002: The tool MUST allow the members of the Nomcom to enter
feedback about any of the accepting nominees into the Private
Nomcom tool. The tool MUST allow the Nomcom member to optionally
enter information about the originator of the feedback. Note
that, as in FB-002, anonymous feedback is allowed, and thus the
actual identify of an originator may not always be entered into
the tool.
o FB-003: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom members to view the
feedback entered for each nominee. If the submitter of the
feedback did not wish to be anonymous, the identity of the
submitter should also be visible along with the feedback.
o FB-004: The Nomcom members MUST be able to enter their interview
comments as feedback for the nominee being interviewed.
o FB-005: All email received on the Nomcom mailing list MUST be
archived. This includes all correspondance among the Nomcom
members, feedback received over email as well as filled in
questionnaires.
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o FB-006: The tool MUST allow the Nomcom chair to manually copy any
of the archived mails into the feedback section of one or more
nominees for one or more open positions. This is required because
a single email may contain feedback concerning more than one
nominee or more than one open position.
9. IANA Considerations
This document does not require any IANA actions.
10. Security considerations
The tool must authenticate all users and must allow classifying
logins into 3 roles. Nomcom chair, Nomcom member and community
member. All communications to/from the Nomcom and among the members
of the Nomcom must be stored in an encrypted form.
11. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Russ Housley, Barry Leiba, Brian
Haberman, Phillip Hallam-Baker, Stewart Bryant, Adrian Farrel,
Stephen Farrell, Martin Stiemerling, Benoit Claise, Sean Turner,
Ralph Droms, Mary Barnes, Subramanian Moonesamy and Menachem Dodge
for their valuable comments to improve this document.
12. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3777] Galvin, J., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and
Recall Process: Operation of the Nominating and Recall
Committees", BCP 10, RFC 3777, June 2004.
Appendix A. Example for key generation
The Nomcom chair generates a public/private key pair to be used to
encrypt Nomcom correspondence and feedback. As an example, the
Nomcom chair can use openssl to generate the key pair using the
following commands:
First the config file for openssl needs to be created with the
following contents (example for the 2012-2013 Nomcom).
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[ req ]
distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
string_mask = utf8only
x509_extensions = ss_v3_ca
[ req_distinguished_name ]
commonName = Common Name (e.g., NomcomYY)
commonName_default = Nomcom12
[ ss_v3_ca ]
subjectKeyIdentifier = hash
keyUsage = critical, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment, dataEncipherment
basicConstraints = critical, CA:true
subjectAltName = email:nomcom12@ietf.org
extendedKeyUsage= emailProtection
# modify the email address to match the year.
Figure 1: nomcom-config.cnf
Then the following command needs to be issued in order to generate
the private key and the certificate.
$ openssl req -config nomcom-config.cnf -x509 -new -newkey rsa:2048
-sha256 -days 730 -nodes -keyout privateKey.pem -out nomcom12.cert
The certificate can then be provided to the tool in order to extract
the public key.
Authors' Addresses
Suresh Krishnan
Ericsson
8400 Blvd Decarie
Town of Mount Royal, Quebec
Canada
Email: suresh.krishnan@ericsson.com
Joel Halpern
Ericsson
Email: joel.halpern@ericsson.com
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