Subject: [Nea] NEA BOF Request

From: "Stephen Hanna" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 21:19:04 -0400

This is a request on behalf of the Network Endpoint 
Assessment (NEA) mailing list to have a BOF session
at IETF 66 in the Security area. The members of the
NEA mailing list have revised the proposed WG charter
in response to feedback received at our last BOF at
IETF 65. We have reached rough consensus for the
charter below and a design team has started work on
our requirements document. A draft is almost ready.

The primary focus of this BOF will be to confirm the
consensus on the charter with a broader audience.

The latest requirements and problem statement documents
will be submitted as Internet Drafts this evening and
should appear in the repository soon.

Thanks,

Steve Hanna
Susan Thomson

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

BOF name: Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA)
Area: Security Area
Chair Names:
  Steve Hanna <[email-masked]>, Susan Thomson <[email-masked]>
Conflicts: EMU WG, EAP WG, TLS WG, RADEXT WG, SAAG, PANA
Expected Attendance: 100
Number of sessions: 1
Length of session: 2 hours
email list: [email-masked]

Draft Agenda:
  see below

Proposed WG Charter:
  see below

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

Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA) BOF Draft Agenda
 
Agenda Bashing (5 minutes)
Discuss and Agree on NEA Charter (115 minutes)

At IETF 65, an NEA BOF was held. Several things were clear:

1) This is important work. Many people spoke about this.

2) We need clear interoperability goals.

3) We should standardize at least a minimal set of
   posture attributes to allow any client and server
   to have some interoperability.

4) PA and PB should be transport independent.

5) We should not spend too much time on requirements.

Since then, the members of the NEA mailing list have revised
the proposed WG charter in response to this feedback. We have
reached rough consensus on the charter below and a design team
has started work on the requirements document. A draft is ready.

The focus of the NEA BOF at IETF 66 will be to confirm the
consensus on the revised charter with a broader audience
and resolve any issues raised.

NEA BOF participants are expected to have read the documents 
listed below before the BOF meeting. Discussion of these 
documents before the BOF meeting is strongly encouraged.
It will take place on the [email-masked] mailing list.

Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA) Problem Statement
draft-thomson-nea-problem-statement-02.txt
(Note that the problem statement will be combined into the
requirements document after the WG charter is approved.)

Requirements for Network Endpoint Access (NEA)
draft-khosravi-nea-requirements-00.txt

Proposed NEA Charter
<See below>

Mailing List
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/nea

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

Proposed NEA WG Charter

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

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