Minutes of the 2016-10-05 IAB Teleconference (Tech Chat & Business Meeting)

1. Roll-call, agenda-bash, administrivia, minutes

1.1. Attendance

Present:

• Jari Arkko (IETF Chair)
• Lars Eggert (IRTF Chair)
• Mat Ford (ISOC Liaison)
• Russ Housley
• Lee Howard
• Ted Hardie
• Suresh Krishnan (IESG Liaison)
• Cindy Morgan (IAB Executive Administrative Manager)
• Erik Nordmark
• Robert Sparks
• Andrew Sullivan (IAB Chair)
• Dave Thaler
• Martin Thomson
• Brian Trammell
• Amy Vezza (IETF Secretariat)
• Suzanne Woolf

Regrets:

• Ralph Droms
• Heather Flanagan (RFC Editor Liaison)
• Joe Hildebrand

Guests:

• Ari Keränen
• Greg Wood

1.2. Administrivia

• BOF Coordination call tomorrow (Thursday).
• Call for feedback on incumbent ICANN TLG appointee to go out today.

1.3. Meeting Minutes

The minutes of the 28 September 2016 meeting remain under review.

1.4. Action Item Review

The internal action item list was reviewed.

2. Tech Chat: IoT @ IETF

Ari Keränen briefed the IAB on current IETF work in the IoT space. The web protocol stack is evolving fast, and many of the improvements are likely to be broadly used in the IoT space. Most of the IETF work thus far has been in basic components, like IPv6 over Layer 2, CoAP, HTTP/2, and security. There are a number of IETF Working Groups doing work on IoT.

The Constrained RESTful Environments (CORE) WG is providing a framework for resource-oriented applications intended to run on constrained IP networks. Their published RFCs include:

• RFC 6690, Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link Format
• RFC 7252, The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)
• RFC 7641, Observing Resources in the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)
• RFC 7959, Block-Wise Transfers in the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)

The CORE WG rechartered in April 2016 to pick up work on new topics, including RESTCONF-style management, Sensor Markup Language (SenML), and Publish-Subscribe Broker for CoAP.

The IPv6 over Low power WPAN (6LOWPAN) WG concluded in 2014, but can be considered the first “IoT Working Group” at IETF. It worked on adapting IPv6 to IEEE 802.15.4 networks using header compression and optimized neighbor discovery. It was replaced by the IPv6 over Networks of Resource-constrained Nodes (6LO) WG in 2014.

The 6LO WG focuses on running IPv6 in IoT networks. Their published RFCs include:

• RFC 7428, Transmission of IPv6 Packets over ITU-T G.9959 Networks
• RFC 7668, IPv6 over BLUETOOTH(R) Low Energy

Additionally, the 6LO WG has active drafts on adaption layers for DECT ULE, MS/TP, NFC, and RFID. There is also privacy and security work.

The IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e (6TISCH) WG is working on enabling IPv6 for the Timeslotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mode of 802.15.4. They have produced RFC 7554, “Using IEEE 802.15.4e Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) in the Internet of Things (IoT): Problem Statement”.

A WG on IPv6 over Low Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN) is in the process of being chartered in the Internet Area. They will work on enabling IPv6 connectivity for LPWANs and technologies to secure the operations and manage the devices and their gateways. They will focus on 4 LPWAN technologies: SIGFOX, LoRa, WI-SUN, and NB-IOT.

The Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks (ROLL) WG has published 17 RFCs since 2009, including:

• Requirements for various use cases
• Routing protocol “RPL” and related extensions
• Terminology
• Security threat analysis
• Multicast

The ROLL WG has several remaining work items on applicability statements for routing extensions.

The DTLS in Constrained Environment (DICE) WG concluded in 2015, but produced RFC 7925, “Transport Layer Security (TLS) / Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Profiles for the Internet of Things”.

The Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE) WG is defining solutions for authentication and authorization to enable authorized access to resources hosted on servers in constrained environments. They have published RFC 7744, “Use Cases for Authentication and Authorization in Constrained Environments”.

The CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) WG is about using CBOR with JOSE and making it more usable in constrained networks.

The Light-Weight Implementation Guidance (LWIG) WG is providing guidance on how to implement Internet technologies on constrained devices. They have published the following RFCs:

• RFC 7228, Terminology for Constrained-Node Networks
• RFC 7815, Minimal Internet Key Exchange Version 2 (IKEv2) Initiator Implementation

The LWIG WG is also working on CoAP implementation guidance, energy efficient design, minimalistic ESP implementation, and discussing experiences with implementing Elliptic Curve Crypto in software on low-end processors.

The Operations and Management Area Working Group (OPSAWG) has published the following RFCs:

• RFC 7547, Management of Networks with Constrained Devices: Problem Statement and Requirements
• RFC 7548, Management of Networks with Constrained Devices: Use Cases

The IRTF’s Thing-to-Thing Research Group (T2TRG) is investigating open research issues on IoT, in close collaboration with the W3C WoT things group.

The IETF also formed an IoT Directorate in 2014. Its primary functions within the IETF are:

• To improve coordination between working groups
• To provide review for IoT-related specifications for any Area Director or WG chair requesting such a review
• To provide insight on IoT work advancing outside of the IETF (SDOs, initiatives, product development, etc.) to the IoT-related WGs and the IESG.

The IAB produced RFC 7452, “Architectural Considerations in Smart Object Networking”. IoT has also been actively discussed in IETF plenaries and in various IETF/IAB workshops.

Dave Thaler observed that some of the ongoing work with CoAP over additional transports (coap, coaps, coap+tcp, coaps+tcp, some investigation of coap over non-IP transports, etc.) might be of interest to the IP Stack Evolution Program. Brian Trammell agreed, noting that it sounds like the protocol proliferation problem is still an issue. He asked if there are things seeing wide deployment that are not part of the IETF stack. Ari Keränen replied that that MQTT has seen at least as much deployment as CoAP.

Suzanne Woolf asked if people are thinking about naming and identifier architecture. Ari Keränen replied that there is work on secure naming.

3. Future Tech Plenaries

The Plenary Planning Program suggested a discussion on the implications of protocol design on the rights of Internet users for IETF 97. The IAB agreed that this would be an interesting topic. The Program will follow up with potential speakers.

4. IPv6 Liaison statement

Discussion of the IPv6 Liaison statement was deferred to the next IAB teleconference (12 October 2016).

5. ISOC Briefing Panel

Mat Ford reported that ISOC is considering a briefing panel at IETF 97 on IoT that would combine IETF expertise with local industry experts. Mat will let the IAB know if this proceeds.

6. Executive Session: IAOC Appointment

The IAB appointment to the IAOC was discussed in an executive session. Cindy Morgan will send out a call for nominations.