Subject: [nfsv4] WG Review: Recharter of Network File System Version 4 (nfsv4)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 13:09:38 -0800 (PST)

A modified charter has been submitted for the Network File System Version
4 working group in the Transport Area of the IETF.  The IESG has not made
any determination as yet.  The modified charter is provided below for
informational purposes only.  Please send your comments to the IESG
mailing list ([email-masked]) by Wednesday, March 11, 2009.

Network File System Version 4 (nfsv4)
======================================
Last Modified: 2009-02-10

Current Status: Active Working Group

Chair(s):
Brian Pawlowski <[email-masked]> 
Spencer Shepler <[email-masked]> 

Transport Area Director(s):
Magnus Westerlund <[email-masked]> 
Lars Eggert <[email-masked]> 

Transport Area Advisor:
Lars Eggert <[email-masked]> 

Technical Advisor(s):
Leif Johansson <[email-masked]> 

Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: [email-masked]
To Subscribe: https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/nfsv4
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/nfsv4/index.html

Description of Working Group:

NFS Version 4 is the IETF standard for file sharing. To maintain NFS
Version 4's utility and currency, the working group is chartered to (1)
maintain the existing NFSv4, NFSv4.1 and related specifications, such
as RPC and XDR, (2) progress these specifications along the standards
track, (3) develop a protocol to create a federated namespace using
NFSv4's existing referral mechanisms.

(1) NFS version 4.0 maintenance

Under this charter item, the WG correct errors and ambiguities in the
protocol currently specified in RFC 3530 and advances it along the
standards track. Extensions of any other kind are out of scope under
this charter item.

(2) NFS Version 4.1 Maintenance

As with NFSv4.0, the WG will address errors or ambiguities in the
NFSv4.1 protocol and related specifications in support of progressing
implementations.

(3) RPC and XDR protocol maintenance

The NFSv4 protocol depends on two related specifications: ONC
RPC and XDR. Similar to charter item (1), the WG may correct errors and
ambiguities in the ONC RPC and XDR protocols currently specified by RFCs
1831, 1833 and 2203. In conjunction with the advancement of the NFSv4
specification along the standards track, the WG will also work on the
advancements of its ONC RPC and XDR dependencies. The WG will also
update the ONC RPC specification for compatibility with IPv6.
Additionally, it will create an IANA registry for RPC program numbers
and seed it with a registry Sun has been maintaining.

(4) Federated Namespace

The NFSv4 protocol provides a referral mechanism that allows a
server to redirect a client to another server. The working group
will produce documents describing a mechanism for creating a federated
namespace (single global name space for a set of NFSv4 servers)
using the NFSv4 protocol's referral capabilities. The file system
federation protocol will enable file access and namespace traversal
across collections of independently administered fileservers. No
modifications will be made to the NFS client to server protocol.

Milestones:

DONE WG Last Call for RPC and NFS RDMA drafts

DONE WG Last Call for rfc1831bis (RPC version 2) 

DONE WG Last Call for NFSv4 minor version 1 

DONE WG Last Call for NFSv4.1 block/volume layout 

DONE WG Last Call for NFSv4.1 Object-based layout 

DONE Submit NFS Minor Version 1 to IESG for publication as a
Propoased Standard 

DONE Submit pNFS Block/Volume Layout to IESG for publication as a
Propoased Standard 

DONE Submit Object-based pNFS Operations to IESG for publication as
a Proposed Standard 

Sep 2009 WG Last Call for rfc3530bis (NFS version 4)

May 2009 WG Last Call for "Requirements for Federated File Systems"
draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-reqts-01

Oct 2009 WG Last Call for "Administration Protocol for Federated
Filesystems"
draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-admin-00.txt

Oct 2009 WG Last Call for "NSDB Protocol for Federated Filesystems"
draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-protocol-00.txt

---

From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 15:20:29 -0600

Has there been insufficient interest in labeled NFSv4?

Nico
--

---

From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 15:50:47 -0600

So, it seems that some part of the IETF infrastructure thinks that
Spencer's e-mail address is still [email-masked].

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 09:36:52 +0100

Hi,

> Has there been insufficient interest in labeled NFSv4?

I don't think interest has been determined yet. Also, this  
rechartering was underway before the discussion on labeled NFSv4  
became active. Due to both reasons, that potential work item isn't  
included in what was sent around.

I'm hesitant to further delay the current rechartering. Why? The  
current NFSv4 charter is really outdated. The chairs and I figured out  
that apparently a rechartering ca. 2005 never made it all the way  
through the system, so we've been trying to bring the charter in  
alignment with WG activities for the last three years. IMO this is  
important, because the WG has in the meantime completed work that  
isn't even mentioned on the current charter.

So, if the WG comes to consensus that labled NFSv4 is something you  
want to do, we'll do a minor charter update that adds only that work  
item. But I'd really like to get the big charter update done ASAP.

I'd be interested to know if you see any issues with this approach.

Lars

---

From: "Noveck, Dave" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 11:48:05 -0500

> I'm hesitant to further delay the current rechartering.

Understood.

> item. But I'd really like to get the big charter update done ASAP.

I think we'd all like to avoid getting into the same situation with the
charter.  In addition to the labeling work, there are a couple of drafts
that Mike Eisler has written (on metadata striping and client knowledge
of deduplication).  I think there may be more interest in these than has
been apparent so far since people were focusing on getting v4.1 to the
approved state.

So if the working group decides to work on these or similar items, I
assume that we'll make the appropriate charter modifications as we make
those decisions.  It may make sense to batch up these relatively minor
items in a single charter update but we'll see how that works out when
we get there.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lars Eggert [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 3:37 AM
To: Nicolas Williams
Cc: Pawlowski, Brian; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [nfsv4] WG Review: Recharter of Network File System Version
4(nfsv4)

Hi,

Lars

---

From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:55:44 -0600

> included in what was sent around.

Thanks.  I believe that the labeled NFSv4 work will eventually require
changing the charter, but we can do without it for now.