Subject: [Nea] May 19 NEA charter draft

From: "Stephen Hanna" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 17:56:04 -0400

Here's today's NEA charter draft. In response to comments, I have
made these changes (omitting minor rewordings):

* Clarified that PA and PB will be designed to support a
  variety of lower layer protocols

* Changed PTT to PT in the charter since the split between
  PTT and PTC is specific to EAP and we want our initial work
  to be transport-independent

* Added several notes saying that specific requirements
  for EAP will be identified in order to achieve eventual
  interoperability via EAP

* Added paragraph to clarify that work beyond PA and PB will
  be considered via the standard rechartering process after
  the completion of these milestones

I hope and think that these changes will address most of
the comments raised to date. If more comments emerge,
I will do another draft on Monday to address those. We can
continue to refine the text as needed up to the BOF.

Thanks,

Steve

------------

Proposed NEA WG Charter
May 19, 2006 Version

Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA) architectures have been implemented in
the industry to assess the "posture" of endpoint devices for the
purposes of monitoring or enforcing compliance to an organization's
policy for access to the network. Posture refers to the hardware or
software configuration of an endpoint as it pertains to an
organization's security policy. Posture may include knowledge about the
types of hardware and software installed and their configurations, e.g.
OS name and version, application patch levels, and anti-virus signature
file version. On network access, an endpoint with an NEA Client can be
queried for posture information which is validated on an NEA Server as
part of network access control.

Since NEA involves many different components from different vendors,
interoperation between NEA architectures and implementations is highly
desirable. Given that well-established protocols already exist for the
lowest layers in the NEA architectures (such as EAP and RADIUS), the
priority of the NEA working group is to standardize protocols at the
higher layers in the architectures: the Posture Attribute protocol
(PA) and the Posture Broker protocol (PB). When used with the existing
standards for lower layers, these new protocols will allow
interoperability between an NEA Client from one vendor and an NEA
Server from another. PA and PB will be designed to support
a variety of lower layer protocols. In order to achieve eventual
interoperability via EAP, specific requirements for EAP will be
identified.

Since there are already several existing protocols at these higher
layers, the NEA working group will consider these existing protocols
as candidates for standardization. A requirements document will be
written and used as a basis for evaluating the candidate protocols.
The working group may decide to standardize one of the candidate
protocols, use one of them as a basis for a new or revised protocol,
or decide that a new protocol is needed.

The NEA Requirements document will include a problem statement,
definition of terms, requirements for PA, PB, and an overall security
analysis. It will also include requirements for the protocol
transporting PA, PB: the Posture Transport protocol (PT). Specific
requirements for an EAP instantiation of PT will be identified.

PA, the Posture Attribute protocol, consists of posture attributes
that are carried between a particular Posture Collector in a NEA
client and a particular Posture Validator in a NEA Server. The PA
protocol is carried inside the PB protocol. Certain posture attributes
will be standardized to ensure interoperability but vendor-specific
attributes will also be supported.

PB, the Posture Broker protocol, aggregates posture attributes
from one or more Posture Collectors in an NEA client and sends them to
the NEA server for assessment by one or more Posture Validators.

PT, the Posture Transport protocol, is a protocol (or stack of
protocols) suitable for carrying the PB protocol at or after
network connection.

The NEA working group will not work on standardizing protocols other
than PA and PB at this time. Such work will be considered via the
standard rechartering process after the completion of these milestones.

Milestones:

June 2006:
* Submit first version of NEA Requirements I-D

July 2006:
* Agree on charter and milestones at IETF 66

September 2006:
* WG Last Call on NEA Requirements I-D 

October 2006:
* Deadline for submission of candidate specs for PA and PB
* Submit first version of NEA Evaluation I-D 

November 2006:
* At IETF 67, review NEA Evaluation I-D

December 2006:
* WG Last Call on NEA Evaluation I-D

January 2007:
* Submit NEA Requirements I-D and Evaluation I-D to IESG as Info RFC
* Submit first draft of PA and PB specs for review

March 2007:
* Discuss unresolved issues with PA and PB specs at IETF 68
* Agree on solutions to unresolved issues with PA and PB specs

April 2007:
* Submit revised draft of PA and PB specs

June 2007
* WG Last Call on PA and PB specs

July 2007
* Resolve outstanding Last Call comments on requirements I-D at IETF 69

August 2007:
* Submit PA and PB specs to IESG for publication as Proposed

_______________________________________________
Nea mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/nea