📄 rfc1391.txt
字号:
Network Working Group G. Malkin
Request for Comments: 1391 Xylogics, Inc.
FYI: 17 January 1993
The Tao of IETF
A Guide for New Attendees of the Internet Engineering Task Force
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Abstract
Over the last two years, the attendance at Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF) Plenary meetings has grown phenomenally. Approximately
38% of the attendees are new to the IETF at each meeting. About 33%
of those go on to become regular attendees. When the meetings were
smaller, it wasn't very difficult for a newcomer to get to know
people and get into the swing of things. Today, however, a newcomer
meets many more new people, some previously known only as the authors
of Request For Comments (RFC) documents or thought provoking email
messages.
The purpose of this For Your Information (FYI) RFC is to explain to
the newcomers how the IETF works. This will give them a warm, fuzzy
feeling and enable them to make the meeting more productive for
everyone. This FYI will also provide the mundane bits of information
which everyone who attends an IETF meeting should know.
Acknowledgments
The IETF Secretariat is made up of the following people: Steve Coya
(Executive Director of the IETF), Cynthia Clark, Megan Davies, Debra
Legare, and Greg Vaudreuil. These are the people behind the
Registration Table, and the success, of the IETF meetings. I thank
them for their hard work, and for their input and review of this
document. Thanks also to Vinton Cerf, Phillip Gross, and Craig
Partridge for their review and comments. And, as always, special
thanks to April Marine and Skippy.
I would also like to thank the management of Xylogics for their
strong, continuing support of my IETF activities.
Internet Engineering Task Force [Page 1]
RFC 1391 The Tao of IETF January 1993
Table of Contents
Section 1 - The "Fun" Stuff
What is the IETF? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Humble Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
IETF Mailing Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Dress Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Seeing Spots Before Your Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Terminal Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Social Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Other General Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Section 2 - The "You've got to know it" Stuff
Registration Bullets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Mailing Lists and Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Important Email Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
IETF Proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Be Prepared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
RFCs and Internet-Drafts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Frequently Asked Questions (and Their Answers) . . . . . . . 13
Pointers to Useful Documents and Files . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Section 3 - The "Reference" Stuff
Tao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
IETF Area Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
What is the IETF?
The IETF is the protocol engineering, development, and
standardization arm of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). Its
mission includes:
o Identifying, and proposing solutions to, pressing operational and
technical problems in the Internet;
o Specifying the development or usage of protocols and the near-term
architecture to solve such technical problems for the Internet;
o Making recommendations to the IAB regarding standardization of
protocols and protocol usage in the Internet;
Internet Engineering Task Force [Page 2]
RFC 1391 The Tao of IETF January 1993
o Facilitating technology transfer from the Internet Research Task
Force (IRTF) to the wider Internet community; and
o Providing a forum for the exchange of information within the
Internet community between vendors, users, researchers, agency
contractors, and network managers.
The IETF Plenary meeting is not a conference, although there are
technical presentations. The IETF is not a traditional standards
organization, although many standards are produced. The IETF is the
volunteers who meet three times a year to fulfill the IETF mission.
There is no membership in the IETF. Anyone may register for and
attend any meeting. The closest thing there is to being an IETF
member is being on the IETF mailing lists (see the IETF Mailing Lists
section). This is where the best information about current IETF
activities and focus can be found.
Humble Beginnings
The first IETF meeting was held in January, 1986 at Linkabit in San
Diego with 15 attendees. The 4th IETF, held at SRI in Menlo Park in
October, 1986, was the first at which non-government vendors
attended. The concept of Working Groups (WG) was introduced at the
5th IETF meeting at the NASA Ames Research Center in California in
February, 1987. The 7th IETF, held at MITRE in McLean, Virginia in
July, 1987, was the first meeting with over 100 attendees.
The 14th IETF meeting was held at Stanford University in July, 1989.
It marked a major change in the structure of the IETF universe. The
IAB (then, Internet Activities Board), which until that time oversaw
many Task Forces, changed its structure to leave only two: the IETF
and the IRTF. The IRTF is tasked to consider the long-term research
problems in the Internet. The IETF also changed. Those changes are
visible in today's hierarchy.
The Hierarchy
To completely understand the structure of the IETF, it is useful to
understand the overall structure in which the IETF resides. The
Internet Society (ISOC), formed in January 1992, provides the
official parent organization for the IETF. The ISOC Board of
Trustees appoints the members of the IAB. The IETF and IRTF Chairs
are also IAB members. The IAB provides the final technical review of
Internet standards. They also provide leadership in the IETF, by
virtue of their skills and years of experience.
Internet Engineering Task Force [Page 3]
RFC 1391 The Tao of IETF January 1993
The IETF is divided into nine functional Areas. They are:
Applications, Internet Services, Network Management, Operational
Requirements, OSI Integration, Routing, Security, Transport and
Services, and User Services. Each Area has at least one Area
Director. There is also an Area Director who oversees Standards
Management. The Area Directors, along with the IETF Chair, form the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Phillip Gross has been
the IETF Chair since the IETF's 7th meeting. He founded the IESG and
serves as its Chair as well. The IESG provides the first technical
review of Internet standards. They are also responsible for the
day-to-day "management" of the IETF.
Each Area has several Working Groups. A Working Group is a group of
people who work under a charter to achieve a certain goal. That goal
may be the creation of an informational document, the creation of a
protocol standard, or the resolution of problems in the Internet.
Most Working Groups have a finite lifetime. That is, once a Working
Group has achieved its goal, it disbands. As in the IETF, there is
no official membership for a Working Group. Unofficially, a Working
Group member is somebody who's on that Working Group's mailing list.
Anyone may attend a Working Group meeting (see the Be Prepared
section below).
Areas may also have Birds of a Feather (BOF) groups. They generally
have the same goals as Working Groups, except that they have no
charter and usually only meet once or twice. BOFs are often held to
determine if there is enough interest to form a Working Group.
IETF Mailing Lists
Anyone who plans to attend an IETF meeting should join the IETF
announcements mailing list. This is where all of the meeting
information, new and revised Internet-Draft and RFC announcements,
IESG Recommendations, and Last Calls are posted. People who'd like
to "get technical" may also join the IETF discussion list,
"ietf@cnri.reston.va.us". This was the only list before the
announcement list was created and is where discussions of cosmic
significance are held (most Working Groups have their own mailing
lists for discussions relating to their work). To join the IETF
announcement list, send a request to:
ietf-announce-request@cnri.reston.va.us
To join the IETF discussion list, send a request to:
ietf-request@cnri.reston.va.us
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RFC 1391 The Tao of IETF January 1993
To join both of the lists, simply send a single message, to either
"-request" address, and indicate that you'd like to join both mailing
lists.
Do not, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason, send a request
to join a list to the list itself! The thousands of people on the
list don't need, or want, to know when a new person joins.
Similarly, when changing email addresses or leaving a list, send your
request only to the "-request" address, not to the main list. This
means you!!
The IETF discussion list is unmoderated. This means that anyone can
express their opinions about issues affecting the Internet. However,
it is not a place for companies or individuals to solicit or
advertise. Only the Secretariat can send a message to the
announcement list.
Even though the IETF mailing lists "represent" the IETF membership at
large, it is important to note that attending an IETF meeting does
not automatically include addition to either mailing list.
Registration
As previously mentioned, all meeting announcements are sent to the
IETF announcement list. Within the IETF meeting announcement is a
Registration Form and complete instructions for registering,
including, of course, the cost. The Secretariat highly recommends
that attendees preregister. Early registration, which ends about one
month before the meeting, carries a lower registration fee. As the
size of the meetings has grown, so has the length of the lines at the
registration desk. Fortunately, there are three lines: the
"preregistered and prepaid" line (which moves very quickly); the
"preregistered and on-site payment" line (which moves a little more
slowly); and the "registration and on-site payment" line (take a
guess).
Registration is open all week. However, the Secretariat highly
recommends that attendees arrive for early registration, beginning at
6:00 P.M. (meeting local time), on the Sunday before the opening
plenary. Not only will there be fewer people, but there will also be
a reception at which people can get a byte to eat. If the
registration lines are long, one can eat first and try again when the
lines are shorter. Newcomers are encouraged to attend the IETF
Orientation on Sunday at 4:30 P.M.
Registered attendees (and there isn't any other kind) receive a
Registration Packet. It contains a general orientation sheet, the
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RFC 1391 The Tao of IETF January 1993
At-A-Glance sheet, a list of Working Group acronyms, the most recent
Agenda, and a name tag. The At-A-Glance is a very important
reference and is used throughout the week. It contains Working
Group/BOF room assignments and a map of room locations. Attendees
who prepaid will also find their receipt in their packet.
Dress Code
Since attendees must wear their name tags, they must also wear shirts
or blouses. Pants or skirts are also highly recommended. Seriously
though, many newcomers are often embarrassed when they show up Monday
morning in suits, to discover that everybody else is wearing T-
shirts, jeans (shorts, if weather permits) and sandals. There are
those in the IETF who refuse to wear anything other than suits.
Fortunately, they are well known (for other reasons) so they are
forgiven this particular idiosyncrasy.
The general rule is: "dress for the weather."
Seeing Spots Before Your Eyes
Some of the people at the IETF will have a little colored dot on
their name tags. A few people have more than one. These dots
identify people who are silly enough to volunteer to do a lot of
extra work. The colors have the following meanings:
red - IAB member
yellow - IESG member
blue - Working Group/BOF chair
green - Local host
Local hosts are the people who can answer questions about the
terminal room, and restaurants and points of interest in the area.
It is important that newcomers to the IETF not be afraid to strike up
conversations with people who wear these dots. If the IAB and IESG
members, and Working Group and BOF chairs, didn't want to talk to
anybody, they wouldn't be wearing the dots in the first place.
To make life simpler for the Secretariat, Registration Packets are
also coded with little colored dots. These are only for Secretariat
use, so the nobody else needs to worry about them.
Internet Engineering Task Force [Page 6]
RFC 1391 The Tao of IETF January 1993
Terminal Room
One of the most important (depending on your point of view) things
the local host does is provide Internet access to the meeting
attendees. In general, the connectivity is excellent. This is
entirely due to the Olympian efforts of the local hosts, and their
ability to beg, borrow and steal. The people and companies who
donate their equipment, services, and time are to be heartily
congratulated and thanked.
While preparation far in advance of the meeting is encouraged, there
may be some unavoidable "last minute" things which can be
accomplished in the terminal room. It may also be useful to people
who need to make trip reports or status reports while things are
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