Internet DRAFT - draft-boucadair-netconf-req

draft-boucadair-netconf-req



netconf Working Group                              M. Boucadair 
INTERNET-DRAFT                                     C. Jacquenet 
Document: draft-boucadair-netconf-req-00.txt       M. Achemlal 
Category: Informational                            Y. Adam 
Expires January 2005                               France Telecom 
                                                   July 2004 
 
 
   Requirements for Efficient and Automated Configuration Management 
                   <draft-boucadair-netconf-req-00.txt> 
 
 
Status of this Memo 
 
   By submitting this Internet-Draft, I certify that any applicable 
   patent or other IPR claims of which I am aware have been disclosed, 
   and any of which I become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with 
   RFC 3668. 
    
   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that      
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts. 
    
   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 
    
   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
        http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt 
   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
        http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
    
    
Abstract 
    
   Given the ever-increasing importance of configuration tasks for the 
   provisioning of a wide range of IP resources, networks, and services 
   in today's Internet, this draft aims at listing the basic 
   requirements that should drive the specification of a protocol to 
   convey configuration information towards network devices. This memo 
   doesn't aim at listing candidate protocols to convey such 
   information, nor at choosing one of these. This draft basically 
   describes a whole set of issues a service provider has to deal with, 
   hence a list of requirements to better address such issues.  
    
Table of Contents 
    
   1.      Introduction................................................3 
   2.      Conventions used in this document...........................3 
   3.      Terminology.................................................3 
   4.      Motivations and Goals.......................................5 
 
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   5.      Positioning this Draft within the NETCONF Working Group.....5 
   6.      Current Issues with Configuration Procedures................6 
   6.1.    Protocol Diversity..........................................6 
   6.2.    Topology Discovery..........................................6 
   6.3.    Device capabilities discovery...............................6 
   6.4.    Impact on the performance...................................7 
   6.5.    Scalability.................................................7 
   6.6.    Automation..................................................7 
   6.7.    Security issues.............................................8 
   7.      Towards a Service-Oriented Configuration Policy.............8 
   8.      Requirements................................................9 
   8.1.    Protocol Requirements.......................................9 
   8.1.1.  Functional Requirements.....................................9 
   8.1.2.  Performance requirements...................................10 
   8.1.3.  Backward Compatibility.....................................10 
   8.2.    Information requirements...................................10 
   8.2.1.  Network services...........................................11 
   8.2.1.1.  Identification of Interfaces.............................11 
   8.2.1.2.  Quality of Service (QoS).................................12 
   8.2.1.3.  Security.................................................12 
   8.2.1.4.  Applications.............................................12 
   8.2.2.  Forwarding services........................................13 
   8.2.2.1.  Routing and Forwarding Configuration Information.........13 
   8.2.2.2.  Traffic Engineering Configuration Information............13 
   8.2.2.3.  Configuration Information for Tunnel Design and 
             Activation...............................................13 
   8.2.2.4.  Tunnel Identification Information........................14 
   8.2.2.5.  Tunneling Protocol Configuration Information.............14 
   8.2.3.  Management services........................................14 
   8.2.3.1.  Fault Management.........................................14 
   8.2.3.2.  Configuration Management.................................14 
   8.2.3.3.  Performance Management...................................15 
   8.2.3.4.  Security Management......................................15 
   8.2.3.4.1.  Device Authentication..................................15 
   8.2.3.4.2.  Integrity of configuration information.................15 
   8.2.3.4.3.  Confidentiality of exchanged data......................15 
   8.2.3.4.4.  Key management.........................................16 
   8.2.3.4.5.  Log of connections.....................................16 
   8.2.3.4.6.  Profiles...............................................16 
   9.      Security Considerations....................................16 
   10.     References.................................................16 
   11.     Acknowledgments............................................17 
   12.     Authors' Addresses.........................................17 
    







 
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1. Introduction 
    
   In today's Internet, configuration procedures are achieved by 
   technical personnel who's required an ever-growing level of expertise 
   because of the various technologies and features that need to be 
   used, configured and activated to deploy a wide range of IP service 
   offerings. This level of expertise has become mandatory as each 
   equipment manufacturer has developed its own interfaces and 
   configuration schemes. In addition, as IP services may rely upon the 
   activation of a set of sophisticated yet complex features, the time 
   to adequately provision such services is also increasing.   
    
   As a consequence, the specification and the use of standardized 
   protocol (for conveying configuration information) and interfaces 
   SHOULD dramatically help in facilitating if not automating the 
   configuration process and the operational production of a wide range 
   of IP services. 
    
   This draft aims at describing basic requirements for configuration 
   task purposes, from a service provider perspective.  
    
   This document is structured as follows: 
    
      - Section 3 introduces some terminology that is used by this 
        document 
      - Section 4 presents the goals and motivations of this draft 
      - Sections 5 position this draft within the current netconf 
        working group initiative.  
      - Section 6 summarizes important issues that are related to 
        configuration tasks in today's IP networks. 
      - Section 7 discusses the importance of introducing a service-
        oriented configuration scheme.   
      - Section 8 lists configuration information and protocol 
        requirements. 
    
    
2. 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 RFC 2119 [2]. 
    
3. Terminology  
    
   This section aims at providing a set of basic definitions for the 
   terms that will be used by this document. 
    
     . Decision point: is an entity that is responsible for generating 
        decisions related to configuration tasks that yield the 
        production of configuration data which needs to be conveyed 
 
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        towards (and processed by) a participating device. 
      
     . Endpoint: one of the extremities of a tunnel. 
      
     . Participating device: any networking equipment that will 
        participate in the establishment, the activation and the 
        maintenance of a given network service. Such devices may 
        include routers and hosts, whatever the configuration 
        procedures and underlying technologies to be used for the 
        deployment of such service. 
      
     . Subscriber: A subscriber (or a customer) is a legal 
        representative who has the (legal) ability to subscribe to a 
        service offering. 
      
     . Tunnel activation: the configuration tasks that position a 
        tunnel facility into an activated state, so that it can be used 
        to convey traffic. Obviously, a tunnel must not (and, 
        hopefully, cannot) be activated before it has been established. 
      
     . Tunnel establishment: all the configuration tasks that lead to 
        the configuration of a tunnel facility. Once the tunnel is 
        established, it needs to be activated in order to be able to 
        convey traffic. 
      
     . Tunnel maintenance: the period of time during which a tunnel 
        facility remains activated. 
      
     . Tunnel: a tunnel is a transport facility that is designed to 
        convey' (IP) data traffic between one endpoint and another 
        (point-to-point tunnels), or between one endpoint and several 
        others (point-to-multipoint tunnels). Tunnels can be used for 
        different purposes, e.g.: 
       
          - Access IP multicast networks over IP clouds that do not 
             support multicast forwarding capabilities, 
          - Access IPv6 networks over IPv4 clouds, 
          - Deploy IP Virtual Private Networks, 
          - Deploy Mobile IP architectures. 
           
     . User: A user is an entity (a human being or a process, from a 
        general perspective) who has been identified (and possibly 
        authenticated) by a service provider, and who will access this 
        service offering according to his associated rights and duties. 
      
     . VPN: Virtual Private Network. A collection of switching 
        resources (e.g. routers) and transmission resources that will 
        be used over an IP backbone thanks to the establishment and the 
        activation of tunnels. These tunnels will convey the IP traffic 
        that characterizes the data oriented-communication service of a 
        customer (VPNs that are designed to support intranet-based 
 
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        applications) or a set of customers (VPNs that are designed to 
        support extranet-based applications). Thus, IP VPN networks are 
        an applicability example of tunnel configuration and management 
        activities. 
    
4. Motivations and Goals 
    
   Operators and protocol developers have gained experience to 
   implement, deploy and manipulate a large set of protocols and 
   associated information. Some data models have also been defined for 
   network management purposes. Thus, several protocols have been 
   standardized, such as SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol, RFC 
   3410([3])), COPS (Common Open Policy Service, RFC 2748([4])), (COPS-
   PR, RFC 3084([5])). Multiple data models have been defined and used 
   by operators like: CIM (Core information model, [6]), DEN (Directory 
   enabled Network), SMI (Structure of Management Information, [7]), 
   SPPI (Structure of Policy Provisioning Information, [8]), MIB 
   (Management Information Base), PIB (Policy Information Management)à 
    
   Despite this standardization effort, some operators and 
   standardization bodies address a negative report (RFC3535) about the 
   capacity of existing tools to deal with operator's requirements about 
   network management and configuration operations.  
    
   The purpose of this document is to clarify what are such requirements 
   from a configuration task perspective. This initiative also aims at 
   gathering any feedback from other service providers or vendors in 
   order to agree on a common yet consolidated set of requirements, 
   which SHOULD dramatically help in facilitating if not automating the 
   configuration process and the operational production of a wide range 
   of IP services. 
    
    
5. Positioning this Draft within the NETCONF Working Group 
    
   In mid-2003, the IETF netconf (Network Configuration) working group 
   has been set up. The main objective of netconf is to produce a 
   protocol suitable for network configuration. A proposal to use XML 
   (Extensible Markup Language) for configuration purposes has been 
   adopted. The choice of this technology hasn't been motivated nor 
   discussed by some formal document yet. 
     
   For instance, neither an analysis of existing configuration-based 
   protocols nor a requirement draft have been published. Therefore, 
   there is no explicit consensus about this technical choice (possibly 
   an implicit consensus between some netconf WG members). Because of 
   the lack of guidance documents (framework and requirement documents) 
   and also of a clear view on the actual requirements, the netconf 
   working group may experience some difficulties to make the Internet 
   community widely adopt its ongoing protocol specification effort.  
    
 
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6. Current Issues with Configuration Procedures 
    
   This section aims at listing issues that SHOULD be carefully studied 
   when dealing with configuration tasks. The items below SHOULD be 
   taken into account when designing a protocol for configuration 
   purposes.  
                 
6.1. Protocol Diversity 
    
   The production of a whole set of IP yet complex services relies upon 
   the activation of a set of capabilities in the participating devices. 
   Especially, a large set of protocols need to be configured, such as 
   routing protocols, management protocols, security protocols, not to 
   mention capabilities that relate to addressing scheme management, QoS 
   policy enforcement, etc. 
    
   Such a diversity of features and protocols MAY increase the risk of 
   inconsistencies. Therefore, the configuration information which is 
   forwarded to the whole set of participating devices for producing a 
   given service or a set of services SHOULD be consistent, whatever the 
   number of features/services to be activated/deployed in the network.   
    
6.2. Topology Discovery  
    
   Network operators SHOULD have means to dynamically discover the 
   topology of their network. This topology information should be as 
   elaborate as possible, including details like: the links that connect 
   network devices, including information about their capacity, such as 
   the total bandwidth, the available bandwidth, the bandwidth that can 
   be reserved, etc. 
    
6.3. Device capabilities discovery 
    
   As stated above a large number of participating devices are involved 
   in deploying and offering IP-based services. These devices could vary 
   depending on the following: 
    
      - The manufacturer in charge of designing these devices 
      - The version of operating system of the devices 
      - The supported protocols 
      - Configuration tools 
      - Others 
    
   As a result, it isn't evident to have homogenous capabilities and 
   means to activate similar functionalities in two participating 
   devices. Therefore, operators SHOULD have means to (1) detect the 
   capabilities, (2) have an exhaustive description and (3) list 
   activated process and functions of a given of participating devices. 
    
   This COULD be done automatically or in demand. 
 
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6.4. Impact on the performance 
    
   Configuring network devices and IP services is a human task, and 
   occurrences of erroneous configurations are therefore plausible. Such 
   occurrences MAY seriously affect the overall quality of a service, 
   like the access to a service or its global availability. From this 
   perspective, some performance indicators SHOULD be defined and 
   measured to qualify:  
    
    -  The impact of any modification of an operational configuration, 
      in terms of performances, 
     
    - The time needed to deliver and achieve any elementary 
      configuration task.   
    
   Simulation tools can also be useful to qualify any possible impact of 
   an elementary configuration task before such task is performed. 
    
    
6.5. Scalability 
    
   As far as scalability is concerned, adequate indicators SHOULD be 
   specified in order to qualify the ability of a given technical means 
   to support a large number of configuration processes. The maintenance 
   of these processes SHOULD not impact the performance of a given 
   system (a system is a set of elements that compose the key 
   fundamentals of an architecture that aims at delivering configuration 
   data). 
    
   Therefore, configuration operations SHOULD be qualified with 
   performance indicators in order to check whether the architecture 
   designed for configuration management is scalable in terms of: 
       
      - Volume of configuration data to be processed per unit of time 
        and according to the number of capabilities and devices that 
        need to be configured, 
      - Volume of information generated by any reporting mechanism that 
        may be associated to a configuration process, 
      - Number of processes that are created in order to achieve 
        specific configuration operations, 
    
    
6.6. Automation 
    
   The efficiency of a configuration process SHOULD be enhanced by the 
   introduction of the highest level of automation when performing 
   configuration tasks.  
    
   Automation is defined as follows: 
 
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      - Automatic provisioning of configuration information to the 
        participating devices, 
      - Dynamic enforcement of configuration policies, 
      - Dynamic reporting mechanisms to notify about the actual 
        processing of configuration information by a participating 
        device. 
    
6.7. Security issues 
    
   Configuring a network or a service raises several security issues 
   that need to be addressed, such as: 
    
      - The integrity of the configuration information, possibly 
        yielding the preservation of the confidentiality of such 
        information when being conveyed over a public IP 
        infrastructure, 
     
      - The need for authorizing and authenticating devices/entities 
        that have the ability of manipulating configuration information 
        (define, instantiate, forward and process). 
    
      - Mutual authentication between a decision point and a device 
        that will receive configuration data 
       
   In addition, additional configuration data SHOULD NOT yield 
   additional security lacks. 
    
    
7. Towards a Service-Oriented Configuration Policy 
    
   Current configuration practice basically focuses on elementary 
   functions, i.e. configuration management for a given service offering 
   is decomposed in a set of elementary tasks. Thus, the consistency of 
   configuration operations for producing IP services MUST be checked by 
   any means appropriate, while current. Configuration methods can, at 
   best, only check if provisioning decisions are correctly enforced by 
   a single device.   
    
   A network device SHOULD be seen as a means to deploy a service and 
   not just as a component of such service. Thus, service configuration 
   and production techniques SHOULD NOT focus on a set of devices taken 
   one-by-one, but on the service itself, which will rely upon a set of 
   features that need to be configured and activated in various regions 
   of the network that supports such service. 
     
   Service providers could dedicate centralized entities that will be 
   responsible for the provisioning and the management of participating 
   devices. The main function of these centralized entities is to make 
   appropriate decisions and generate convenient configuration data that 
   will be delivered to the participating devices. In addition, these 
 
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   centralized entities will make sure of the consistency of the 
   decisions that have been taken to produce the service, as per a 
   dynamic configuration policy enforcement scheme.   
    
   Service-oriented configuration SHOULD rely upon the following 
   requirements: 
    
      - The data models MUST be service-oriented; 
      - The configuration protocol(s) SHOULD at large extent possible 
        reuse existing data and information models; 
      - The configuration protocol(s) SHOULD be open for further 
        enhancement and adding new functionalities that could reveal in 
        the future as a must; 
      - The configuration protocol(s) SHOULD provide means to validate 
        the consistence and the validation of service configuration   
     
    
8. Requirements 
    
8.1. Protocol Requirements 
    
   Configuration information SHOULD be provided to the participating 
   devices by means of a communication protocol that would be used 
   between the aforementioned participating devices and a presumably 
   centralized entity that would aim at storing, maintaining and 
   updating this configuration information as appropriate, as well as 
   making adequate decisions at the right time and under various 
   conditions. 
    
8.1.1. Functional Requirements 
    
   The vendor-independent communication protocol for conveying 
   configuration information SHOULD have the following characteristics: 
    
   1. The protocol SHOULD use a reliable transport mode, and independent 
     from the network layer (i.e. IPv4/IPv6), 
      
   2. The protocol architecture SHOULD provide a means for dynamically 
     provision the configuration information to the participating 
     devices, so that it may introduce a high level of automation in 
     the actual negotiation and invocation of a a whole range of IP 
     service offerings.  
      
   3. The protocol SHOULD provide the relevant means (encoding 
     capabilities, operations and command primitives, extension 
     capabilities that SHOULD allow additional operations, etc.) to be 
     able to reliably convey any kind of configuration information,  
      
   4. The protocol SHOULD be a privileged vector for the dynamic 
     provisioning of any kind of configuration data, as well as the 
     dynamic enforcement of any kind of policy such as a routing 
 
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     policy, a QoS policy and/or a security policy. This requirement 
     MAY yield the definition and the support of vendor-independent 
     instantiation procedures that will aim at uniquely identifying the 
     configuration data model and/or the policy enforcement scheme that 
     refer to a given IP service offering.  
      
   5. The protocol SHOULD support a reporting mechanism that may be used 
     for statistical information retrieval, 
      
   6. The protocol SHOULD support the appropriate security mechanisms to 
     provide guarantees as far as the preservation of the 
     confidentiality of the configuration information is concerned. 
    
   7. The protocol SHOULD support a notification mechanism that may be 
     used to initiate configuration-related tasks (i.e. inform that a 
     link drop down) 
 
8.1.2. Performance requirements 
    
   The protocol architecture for conveying configuration information 
   within a network SHOULD be designed so that: 
    
   1. The activation of the protocol by the participating devices SHOULD 
     not affect the overall switching performances of such devices, 
     whatever the volume of configuration data these devices will have 
     to process on a given period of time, 
    
   2. The activation of the protocol SHOULD NOT dramatically affect the 
     global resources of the network infrastructure that will convey 
     the protocol-specific traffic, whatever the volume of such traffic 
     and whatever the scope (set of IP service offerings the 
     configuration data refer to, set of policies to dynamically 
     enforced, etc.) covered by such traffic. 
 
8.1.3. Backward Compatibility 
    
   The introduction and the activation of a protocol for conveying 
   configuration data SHOULD allow for smooth migration procedures, so 
   that vendor-specific and vendor-independent configuration procedures 
   and management MAY gracefully co-exist on a (hopefully) limited 
   period of time. 
    
   Also, in case of any kind of protocol failure, it MUST be possible to 
   rely upon any vendor-specific configuration procedure to keep on 
   performing configuration tasks without any risk of disruption that 
   may affect the availability of a (set of) service offerings, and/or 
   the access to network resources. 
    
8.2. Information requirements  
    

 
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   The increase of network service offerings, of the protocol amount to 
   be implemented by equipment as well as the diversity of vendors made 
   the configuration tasks being critical. These tasks are commonly 
   achieved with vendor-specific solutions that deal with device-related 
   information. Moreover the configuration information may be spread 
   across different repositories through the network. It then becomes 
   more and more difficult for the service provider to get a unified 
   (and obviously confident) view of its network in term on æoffered 
   servicesÆ rather than a ænetwork device jigsawÆ. 
    
   Configuration information SHOULD therefore be provided to the 
   participating devices as unified service parameters being independent 
   from the aforementioned devices vendors. These parameters MUST relate 
   to a standardized service model rather than device-specific as it 
   used to be. Examples of the so-called service model may be tunneling 
   service, internal routing service, VPN service. Their definition is 
   outside the scope of this draft. 
    
   Current service providers' concerns focus on the unification of 
   accesses to heterogeneous devices (those that are part of a multi-
   vendor environment) and introduce a high level of automation when 
   achieving configuration of this infrastructure. This unification 
   depends on two major issues, the definition of a protocol (the 
   container) and the definition of data models (the content). 
   Standardizing these two points bring new opportunities: 
    
      - Equipment are seen as functional blocks providing a set of 
        standardized capabilities; 
         
      - These functional blocks are described as vendor-independent 
        capabilities; 
         
      - These functional blocks are all managed homogeneously, whatever 
        the underlying technology; 
         
   As a result, it would be possible to add semantic rules to automate 
   detection and correction of false configurations, either at the scale 
   of a single device or at the scale of a whole network. Furthermore, 
   an equipment from vendor X could de replaced by another device from 
   vendor Y with no impact on the configuration management. 
    
   To do so, the data models SHOULD satisfy the requirements described 
   below. 
    
    
8.2.1. Network services  
8.2.1.1. Identification of Interfaces 
    
   Configuration information that relates to identification deals with 
   the namespace of the interfaces of a network equipment. This naming 
   scheme describes the properties of an interface, and must take into 
 
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   account all the parameters that are required to correctly configure 
   an interface. The following information MUST be provided: 
    
   A name, with a generic syntax not related to a specific vendor. The 
   name can define the media type of the interface; 
   Depending on the media type, further information MAY be added (link 
   mode, MTU, speed...); 
    
      - Optionally, a logical descriptor. Depending on the media type 
        it can be relevant to have a logical descriptor (for VLANs 
        declared on Ethernet interfaces, for instance). In this case 
        the encapsulation type must be provided; 
         
      - Optionally, a description field giving general information 
        about the interface (i.e. ôOC192 link from LA to SFö) 
         
    
8.2.1.2. Quality of Service (QoS) 
    
   IP services are provided with a level of quality that MAY be 
   guaranteed (either qualitatively or quantitatively) by any means 
   appropriate. QoS policies SHOULD be dynamically enforced according to 
   a data model that will accurately reflect all the elementary QoS 
   capabilities that MAY be configured and activated to enforce such 
   policies. 
    
   For instance, in the case of the activation of the DiffServ QoS model 
   within a network infrastructure, the participating routers should be 
   provided with the appropriate parameters. 
    
8.2.1.3. Security 
    
   The protocol architecture MUST provide security functions that 
   provide source authentication, integrity and confidentiality of 
   configuration information. The security functions MUST be activated, 
   whatever the contents of the payload. 
    
   In order to protect device accesses, the configuration architecture 
   MUST provide a filtering / fire-walling access scheme that would 
   allow to control remote and in-band accesses (i.e. console security 
   rules, access listsà)  
    
8.2.1.4. Applications 
    
   Network devices usually run network functions that allow activation 
   of specific services, like HTTP, BOOTP, DHCP, SYSLOG ... 
   Such devices must therefore be provided with the relevant information 
   related to these services: 
    
      - the ability to enable or disable the service; 
      - the mandatory parameters for each of the service. 
 
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8.2.2. Forwarding services 
8.2.2.1. Routing and Forwarding Configuration Information 
    
   Routing and forwarding configuration information deals with the 
   decision criteria that should be taken by a participating device to 
   forward an incoming IP datagram, according to a given routing policy. 
   From this perspective, the participating devices should be provided 
   with the following information: 
    
   - In the case of the activation of dynamic routing protocols for the 
     computation and the selection of routes that will be considered 
     for forwarding traffic, the participating routers SHOULD be 
     provided with the relevant metric information so that the routers 
     (dynamically) assign the metric values accordingly, 
    
   - In the case where the traffic is to be conveyed across domains, 
     the participating devices should be provided with the relevant 
     BGP-4 (Border Gateway Protocol, version 4)-based reachability 
     information, including the BGP-4 attribute-related information 
     that will be taken into account by the route selection process of 
     the router to decide where to forward the corresponding traffic, 
    
   - Also, the participating routers should be provided with the 
     configuration information related to any static route that may 
     identify specific next hops to reach a given destination prefix. 
    
8.2.2.2. Traffic Engineering Configuration Information 
    
   Traffic engineering is an important task of configuration management: 
   within this context, the participating devices should be provided 
   with the configuration information that will help them to choose the 
   appropriate routes that lead to a set of destinations, according to 
   specific constraints. 
    
   These constraints may be expressed in terms of time duration (e.g. 
   the use of a traffic-engineered route on a weekly basis), traffic 
   characterization (e.g. all the IP multicast traffic should be 
   conveyed by a specific route), security concerns (e.g. use IPSec  [9] 
   tunnels whenever possible), and/or QoS considerations (e.g. EF 
   (Expedited Forwarding, [10])-marked traffic should always use a 
   subset of activated and well-identified routes). 
    
   The enforcement of an IP traffic engineering policy would therefore 
   yield the use of specific routes that will be dynamically computed 
   and selected according to the aforementioned type of configuration 
   information. 
    
8.2.2.3. Configuration Information for Tunnel Design and Activation 
    
 
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8.2.2.4. Tunnel Identification Information 
    
   The identification of a tunnel should be globally unique, especially 
   if the tunnel is to be established and activated across autonomous 
   systems. The tunnel identification schemes (e.g. endpoint numbering) 
   should be left to service providers, given that the corresponding 
   formalism may be commonly understood, whatever the number of 
   autonomous systems the tunnel may cross. 
    
   The tunnel identification information should at least be composed of 
   the tunnel endpoint identification information. The tunnel 
   identification information may also be composed of an informal 
   description of the tunnel, e.g. the purpose of its establishment, the 
   customer(s) who may use this tunnel, etc.  
    
   There may be cases where this additional information is irrelevant, 
   e.g. in the case where the tunnel has been designed to convey public 
   Internet traffic, where a user wishes to access IP multicast-based 
   services through non-multicast capable clouds. 
    
8.2.2.5. Tunneling Protocol Configuration Information 
    
   Any participating device MUST be provided with the configuration 
   information related to the tunneling technique to be used for the 
   establishment and the activation of the tunnel. Such techniques 
   include Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE, [11]), IP Secure in 
   tunnel mode (IPSec), Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP, [12]), etc. 
    
8.2.3. Management services 
8.2.3.1. Fault Management 
    
   Fault management is one of the critical points when managing a given 
   service. Indeed, an operator MAY deploy means to detect fault 
   occurring in its network and has pre-configured policies that SHOULD 
   be enforced by participating devices to limit the impact on the 
   quality of service. 
    
   Mechanisms to monitor and report the incidents that occurred to the 
   service management SHOULD be independent of the configuration 
   protocol. 
    
8.2.3.2. Configuration Management 
    
   Configuration management is responsible for the provisioning of 
   configuration information to produce a service. Errors during a 
   configuration procedure could impact the availability of a given 
   service offering, while consistency checks are mandatory so as to 
   correctly enforce a configuration policy. 
     
   The following requirements have been identified: 
       
 
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      - Data provisioning SHOULD be as automated as possible 
       
      - An operator SHOULD have means to detect and diagnose 
        configuration errors 
       
      - An operator SHOULD deploy means to check the consistency of the 
        configuration information forwarded to the participating 
        devices, especially when a whole range of IP services can be 
        delivered upon subscription requests. 
    
      - An operator MAY simulate the impact of the enforcement of a 
        given configuration policy on its services before delivering 
        such information to the participating devices. 
     
8.2.3.3. Performance Management 
    
   Performance management is mainly deals with the monitoring of the 
   network and the status of the services.  
   The performance of a configuration policy/architecture will be 
   studied in the next version of this draft. 
    
8.2.3.4. Security Management 
    
8.2.3.4.1. Device Authentication 
    
   It MUST be possible to activate mutual authentication between a 
   participating device and a centralized entity that is responsible for 
   instantiating and forwarding configuration data to these 
   participating devices. The authentication MUST be checked before 
   exchanging any configuration data to prevent DoS (Denial of Service) 
   attacks.  
    
8.2.3.4.2. Integrity of configuration information 
    
   Two types of integrity MUST be provided. The first one MAY be done at 
   the network layer, e.g. by using the IPsec protocol suite. It will 
   protect each IP datagram, exchanged between a participating device 
   and the configuration management platform(s), from malicious 
   modification. The second one SHOULD protect the configuration data at 
   the application layer (e.g. the entire file configuration is 
   integrity protected). 
    
8.2.3.4.3. Confidentiality of exchanged data  
    
   The participating device SHOULD provide security functions that 
   provide confidentiality. The encryption algorithms MUST be selectable 
   manually and/or automatically. The encryption algorithms MUST be the 
   standard ones.  
    

 
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8.2.3.4.4. Key management 
    
   The configuration system MUST provide a scalable key management 
   scheme. The number of keys to be managed must be at most linearly 
   proportional to the number of the devices. 
 
    
8.2.3.4.5. Log of connections 
    
   The participating device MUST log all configuration connections. At 
   least the following information must be provided: 
    
   -  Identity of the device which provided the configuration 
      information, 
   -  Date of the connection, 
   -  Identity of the user that has launched the configuration process, 
   -  Version of the configuration data has been enforced. 
    
     
8.2.3.4.6. Profiles 
    
   The configuration system MUST allow the definition and the activation 
   of several privilege levels. Each level could be associated to a set 
   of administrative functions. And each configuration administrator 
   could be assigned a specific privileged access level to perform a 
   (possibly limited) set of configuration tasks. 
    
    
9. Security Considerations 
    
   This draft reflects a set of requirements as far as the design and 
   the enforcement of configuration policies are concerned for 
   (automated) service subscription, delivery and exploitation. As such, 
   the document addresses some security concerns that have been depicted 
   in section 9.2.3.5, and that SHOULD be taken into account when 
   considering the specification of a protocol that will convey 
   configuration information, as well as configuration information 
   itself. 
 
10. References 
     
   [1]  Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 
      9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 
    
   [2]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement 
      Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997 
    
 



 
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   [3]  Case, J., Mundy, R., Partain, D. and B. Stewart, "Introduction 
      and Applicability Statements for Internet-Standard Management 
      Framework", RFC 3410, December 2002. 
    
   [4]  Boyle, J., Cohen, R., Durham, D., Herzog, S., Raja, R. and A. 
      Sastry, "The COPS (Common Open Policy Service) Protocol", RFC 
      2748, January 2000. 
    
   [5]  Chan, K., Durham, D., Gai, S., Herzog, S., McCloghrie,K., 
      Reichmeyer, F., Seligson, J., Smith, A. and R. Yavatkar, "COPS 
      Usage for Policy Provisioning (COPS-PR)", RFC 3084, March 2001. 
    
   [6]  Distributed Management Task Force, "Common Information Model 
      (CIM) Specification Version 2.2", DSP 0004, June 1999. 
    
   [7]  McCloghrie, K., Perkins, D. and J. Schoenwaelder, "Structure of 
      Management Information Version 2 (SMIv2)", STD 58, RFC 2578, April 
      1999. 
    
   [8]  McCloghrie, K., Fine, M., Seligson, J., Chan, K., Hahn, S., 
   Sahita, R., Smith, A. and F. Reichmeyer, "Structure of Policy 
      Provisioning Information (SPPI)", RFC 3159, August 2001. 
    
   [9]  Atkinson R., "Security Architecture for the Internet Protocol", 
      RFC 2401, August 1998. 
    
   [10] Davie, B., Charny, A., Bennett, J.C.R., Benson, K., Le Boudec, 
      J.Y., Courtney, W., Davari, S., Firoiu, V. and D. Stiliadis, "An 
      Expedited Forwarding PHB (Per-Hop Behavior)", RFC 3246, March 
      2002. 
    
   [11] Farinacci, D., et al., "Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", 
      RFC 2784, March 2000. 
    
   [12] Townsley, W., et al., "Layer Two Tunneling Protocol "L2TP"", RFC 
      2661, August 1999. 
    
11. Acknowledgments 
    
    
12. Authors' Addresses 
    
   Mohamed Boucadair 
   France Telecom R & D 
   42, rue des Coutures 
   14000 Caen,  
   France 
   Phone: 33 2 31 75 92 31 
   Email: mohamed.boucadair@francetelecom.com 
    
 
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   Christian Jacquenet 
   France Telecom Long Distance 
   3 Avenue Fran‡ois Ch‚teau 
   35901 Rennes Cedex,  
   France 
   Phone: 33 2 99 87 63 31 
   Email: christian.jacquenet@francetelecom.com 
    
   Mohammed Achemlal 
   France Telecom R & D 
   42, rue des Coutures 
   14000 Caen, France 
   Phone: 33 2 31 75 92 28 
   Email: mohammed.achemlal@francetelecom.com 
    
   Yan Adam 
   France Telecom R&D LANNION  
   2 Avenue Pierre Marzin  
   22307 Lannion Cedex 
   France 
   Phone: 33 2 96 05 29 19 
   Email: yan.adam@francetelecom.com 
    
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