Network Working Group                                            E. Lear
Internet-Draft                                                K. Crozier
Expires: January 30, 2004                                  Cisco Systems
                                                                 R. Enns
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                             August 2003


                      NETCONF Transport over BEEP
                       draft-lear-netconfbeep-00

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 30, 2004.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document specifies a transport mapping for the NETCONF protocol
   over the Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP).










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Table of Contents

   1.    Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.    BEEP Transport Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.1   NETCONF Session Initiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.2   NETCONF RPC Execution  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.3   NETCONF <rpc-abort> and <rpc-progress> . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.4   NETCONF Session Teardown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.5   BEEP Profiles for NETCONF Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.5.1 Management Channel Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.5.2 Operations Channel Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   2.5.3 Notification Channel Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   3.    Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
         Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
         Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
         Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
         Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 13


































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1. Introduction

   The NETCONF protocol [1] defines a simple mechanism through which a
   network device can be managed.  NETCONF is designed to be usable over
   a variety of transport protocols.  This document specifies a
   transport mapping over the Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP)
   [2] .

   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 RFC 2119 [3].








































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2. BEEP Transport Mapping

   All NETCONF over BEEP implementations MUST implement the profile and
   functional mapping between NETCONF and BEEP as described below.

2.1 NETCONF Session Initiation

   Managers may be either BEEP listeners or initiators.  Similarly,
   agents may be either listeners or initiators.  Thus the initial
   exchange takes place without regard to whether a manager or the agent
   is the initiator.  After the transport connection is established, as
   greetings are exchanged, they should each announce their support for
   TLS [5] and optionally SASL [4] (see below), as well as for the
   SYSLOG profile [6].  Once greetings are exchanged, if TLS is to be
   used and available by both parties, the listener STARTs a channel
   with the TLS profile.

   Once TLS has been started, a new greeting is sent by both initiator
   and listener, as required by the BEEP RFC.

   At this point, if SASL is desired, the initiator starts BEEP channel
   1 to perform a SASL exchange to authenticate itself.  When SASL is
   completed, the channel MUST be closed.

   Once authentication has occurred, there is no need to distinguish
   between initiator and listener.  We now distinguish between manager
   and agent.

   The manager now establishes an NETCONF management channel for the
   purpose of exchanging capabilities, monitoring progress, and aborting
   remote procedure calls.  As initiators assign odd channels and
   listeners assign even channels, the management channel is BEEP
   channel 1 or 2, depending on whether the manager is the initiator or
   the listener.

   The manager next establishes the NETCONF operational channel for the
   purpose of issuing RPC requests.  This channel is BEEP channel 3 or
   4.

   Finally, if either manager or agent wishes to send or receive
   notifications, it may issue a start on the next available channel if
   the other side has sent the send or receive NETCONF capability.

   At this point, the NETCONF session is established.

2.2 NETCONF RPC Execution

   To issue an RPC, the manager transmits on the operational channel a



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   BEEP MSG containing the RPC and its arguments.  In accordance with
   the BEEP standard, RPC requests may be split across multiple BEEP
   frames.

   Once received and processed, the agent responds with BEEP RPYs on the
   same channel with the response to the RPC.  In accordance with the
   BEEP standard, responses may be split across multiple BEEP frames.

2.3 NETCONF <rpc-abort> and <rpc-progress>

   <rpc-abort> and <rpc-progress> requests are issued by the manager on
   the NETCONF management channel, and the agent responds with BEEP RPYs
   on that same channel.

2.4 NETCONF Session Teardown

   Either side may initiate the termination of an NETCONF session.  In
   This is done by issuing a BEEP close on the operational channel after
   the current RPC has completed.  The same is done with any
   notification channels by the end that transmits notifications.
   Finally, BEEP channel 0 is closed.

2.5 BEEP Profiles for NETCONF Channels

   There are two profiles, the management channel profile and the
   operations channel profile.  These are not to be confused with the
   BEEP control channel.

   The operations channel will have two commands, <rpc> and <rpc-reply>.
   The management channel will have one additional operation with
   <rpc-progress>.

2.5.1 Management Channel Profile

      <!-- DTD for netconf management over BEEP

        Refer to this DTD as:

          <!ENTITY % NETCONF PUBLIC "netconf/management/1.0" "">
          %NETCONF;
        -->

      <!--   Contents

          Overview

          Includes
          Profile Summaries



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          Entity Definitions

          Operations
           rpc
           rpc-reply
           rpc-progress
        -->

      <!--  Overview   NETCONF Management channel  -->

      <!-- Includes -->

             <!ENTITY % BEEP PUBLIC "-//Blocks//DTD BEEP//EN"
                        "">
             %BEEP;

      <!--  Profile summaries


          BEEP profile NETCONF-MANAGEMENT

          role        MSG                       RPY        ERR
          ====        ===                       ===        ===
          I or L      rpc                       ok         error
          I or L      rpc-reply         ok         error
          I or L      rpc-progress              ok         error

      -->

      <!--
        Entity Definitions

              entity        syntax/reference     example
              ======        ================     =======

        a PRC
           RPC-DATA       Alpha
        a RPC reply number
              RPC-REPLY      1*3DIGIT
        a RPC progress number
              RPC-PROGRESS   1*3DIGIT

      -->

      <!ENTITY % RPC-REPLY    "CDATA">
      <!ENTITY % RPC-DATA     "CDATA">
      <!ENTITY % RPC-PROGRESS "CDATA">
       -->



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      <!--
        RPC command
        -->

      <!ELEMENT rpc        (#PCDATA)>
      <!ATTLIST rpc
                rpc-data        %RPC_DATA;                 #REQUIRED>


   <!--
        Result of RPC.
        -->

      <!ELEMENT rpc-reply    (#PCDATA)>
      <!ATTLIST rpc-reply
                rpc-reply       %RPC-REPLY;                #REQUIRED
             rpc-data    %rpc-data                 #REQUIRED>

   <!--
        Progress of RPC operation.
        -->

      <!ELEMENT rpc-progress   (#PCDATA)>
      <!ATTLIST rpc-progress
                rpc-progress %RPC-PROGRESS;                #REQUIRED>

      <!-- End of DTD -->


2.5.2 Operations Channel Profile

      <!-- DTD for netconf operations over BEEP

        Refer to this DTD as:

          <!ENTITY % NETCONF PUBLIC "netconf/Operation/1.0" "">
          %NETCONF;
        -->

      <!--   Contents

          Overview

          Includes
          Profile Summaries
          Entity Definitions

          Operations



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           rpc
           rpc-reply
        -->

      <!--  Overview   NETCONF operation channel  -->

      <!-- Includes -->

             <!ENTITY % BEEP PUBLIC "-//Blocks//DTD BEEP//EN"
                        "">
             %BEEP;

      <!--  Profile summaries


          BEEP profile NETCONF-MANAGEMENT

          role        MSG                       RPY        ERR
          ====        ===                       ===        ===
          I or L      rpc                               ok         error
          I or L      rpc-reply                 ok         error

      -->

      <!--
        Entity Definitions

              entity        syntax/reference     example
              ======        ================     =======

        a PRC
           RPC-DATA       Alpha
        a RPC reply number
              RPC-REPLY      1*3DIGIT

      -->

      <!ENTITY % RPC-REPLY    "CDATA">
      <!ENTITY % RPC-DATA     "CDATA">

       -->

      <!--
        RPC command
        -->

      <!ELEMENT RPC        (#PCDATA)>
      <!ATTLIST RPC



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                RPC-DATA        %RPC_DATA;                 #REQUIRED>


   <!--
        Result of RPC.
        -->

      <!ELEMENT RPC-REPLY    (#PCDATA)>
      <!ATTLIST RPC-REPLY
                RPC-REPLY       %RPC-REPLY;                #REQUIRED
                RPC-DATA    %RPC-DATA              #REQUIRED>


      <!-- End of DTD -->


2.5.3 Notification Channel Profile

   The NETCONF notification channel profile is defined in RFC 3195 [6].
































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3. Security Considerations

   Configuration information is by its very nature sensitive.  Its
   transmission in the clear and without integrity checking leaves
   devices open to classic so-called "person in the middle" attacks.
   Configuration information often times contains passwords, user names,
   service descriptions, and topological information, all of which are
   sensitive.  A NETCONF transport protocol, therefore, must minimally
   support options for both confidentiality and authentication.

   BEEP makes use of both transport layer security and SASL.  We require
   that TLS be used in BEEP as described by the BEEP standard.
   Client-side certificates are strongly desirable, but an SASL
   authentication is the bare minimum.  SASL allows for the use of
   protocols such as RADIUS [9], so that authentication can occur off
   the box.

   SASL authentication will occur on the first channel creation.  No
   further authentication may occur during the same session.  This
   avoids a situation where rights are different between different
   channels.  If an implementation wishes to support multiple accesses
   by different individuals with different rights, then multiple
   sessions are required.

   Different environments may well allow different rights prior to and
   then after authentication.  Thus, an authorization model is not
   specified in this document.  When an operation is not properly
   authorized then a simple "permission denied" is sufficient.  Note
   that authorization information may be exchanged in the form of
   configuration information, which is all the more reason to ensure the
   security of the connection.




















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Normative References

   [1]  Enns, R., "NETCONF Configuration Protocol",
        draft-ietf-netconf-prot-00 (work in progress), August 2003.

   [2]  Rose, M., "The Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol Core", RFC
        3080, March 2001.

   [3]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
        Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [4]  Myers, J., "Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)",
        RFC 2222, October 1997.

   [5]  Dierks, T., Allen, C., Treese, W., Karlton, P., Freier, A. and
        P. Kocher, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0", RFC 2246, January
        1999.

   [6]  New, D. and M. Rose, "Reliable Delivery for syslog", RFC 3195,
        November 2001.































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Informative References

   [7]  Bray, T., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C. and E. Maler,
        "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Second Edition)", W3C REC
        REC-xml-20001006, October 2000.

   [8]  Hollenbeck, S., Rose, M. and L. Masinter, "Guidelines for the
        Use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) within IETF Protocols",
        BCP 70, RFC 3470, January 2003.

   [9]  Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A. and W. Simpson, "Remote
        Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 2865, June
        2000.


Authors' Addresses

   Eliot Lear
   Cisco Systems
   170 W. Tasman Dr.
   San Jose, CA  95134-1706
   US

   EMail: lear@cisco.com


   Ken Crozier
   Cisco Systems
   170 W. Tasman Dr.
   San Jose, CA  95134-1706
   US

   EMail: kcrozier@cisco.com


   Rob Enns
   Juniper Networks
   1194 North Mathilda Ave
   Sunnyvale, CA  94089
   US

   EMail: rpe@juniper.net









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Intellectual Property Statement

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   HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
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Acknowledgement

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.











































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