<NIS.NSF.NET> [IMR] IMR88-03.TXT
MARCH 1988
INTERNET MONTHLY REPORTS
------------------------
The purpose of these reports is to communicate to the Internet Research
Group the accomplishments, milestones reached, or problems discovered by
the participating organizations.
This report is for research use only, and is not for public
distribution.
Each organization is expected to submit a 1/2 page report on the first
business day of the month describing the previous month's activities.
These reports should be submitted via network mail to Ann Westine
(Westine@ISI.EDU) or Karen Roubicek (Roubicek@NNSC.NSF.NET).
BBN LABORATORIES AND BBN COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION
---------------------------------------------------
WIDEBAND NETWORK
A Wideband Butterfly Gateway was installed at Lincoln Laboratory
early in the month. The new gateway, connecting the ARPANET to the
Wideband Network via the Lincoln Laboratory BSAT, will provide
backup ARPANET connectivity for the Cronus DOS cluster at
ESD/Mitre.
A coast-to-coast meeting of the Distributed Systems Advisory Board
was supported by the Wideband Network and the multimedia
conferencing facilities at BBN and ISI on March 25. This was the
first such multimedia conference to employ commercial color video
codecs and echo cancellation units.
A new Wideband Network test site was brought up on the satellite
channel via shared access to BBN's Wideband earth station. This
site includes a BSAT running recently developed software that
implements an interface to SIMNET, DARPA's real-time interactive
military vehicle simulation program. This SIMNET-BSAT interface
will support experimentation in and demonstrations of the
application of Wideband packet satellite technology to the
connection of geographically dispersed local area networks of
SIMNET simulators.
The problems that had been encountered in the new interface between
the DCEC Butterfly Gateway and the DCEC BSAT have been resolved.
The gateway is now providing stable SATNET-Wideband connectivity.
Westine [Page 1]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
INTERNET R&D
We started working on adding support for Internet Multicast to the
Butterfly Gateway. This has some interesting design issues
regarding how to do multicast over networks which do not support
multicast services and how to maintain and distribute the multicast
routing database.
The internet passed the 400 network mark this month. It is
currently about 420 networks. Earlier in the month we installed a
patch in the LSI-11 gateways to increase the routing tables from
400 to 500.
VAX NETWORKING
David Waitzman has started work with Steve Deering of Stanford on
mechanisms to support internet-wide multicast groups.
SATNET
The SATNET has been very stable through the month of March. We
have had no unscheduled outages of the SATNET SIMP's or PSP
terminal hardware. The availability of the SATNET was again above
99% from tests run by ISI.
A new SIMP configuration tape was sent to Goonhilly to prepare for
the upgrade of the Goonhilly to RSRE line to 64 Kb Kilostream
service. We are waiting for BT to notify us that the line is in
place. The UCL to RSRE line was upgraded to the new service and
operated for a short time. A problem developed with the line and
it was turned back over to BT.
Bob Hinden (Hinden@BBN.COM)
ISI
---
Internet Concepts Project
Jon Postel participated in the FRICC meeting on Networks in San
Diego, March 3, 1988. Jon Postel attended the IAB meeting in San
Francisco, March 20-21. Jon Postel attended the Surfnet meeting at
UC Irvine, March 7. Paul Mockapetris gave a presentation at the
Energy Research Network Workshop in Oakland, CA., March 9. Paul
Mockapetris and Joyce Reynolds attended the IETF meeting at the San
Diego Super Computer Computing Center, March 1-2.
Westine [Page 2]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
Two RFCs were published this month.
RFC 1049: Sirbu, M., "A CONTENT-TYPE HEADER FIELD FOR
INTERNET MESSAGES", CMU, March 1988.
RFC 1051: Prindeville, P., "A Standard for the Transmission
of IP Datagramsand ARP Packets over ARCNET
Networks", McGill University, March 1988.
Ann Westine
Multimedia Conferencing Project
Packet video is up and running with the Image 30 video codec
boards from Concept Communications. We have modified the on-
board firmware of the Image 30 to implement the HDLC serial
line protocol required to interface to the Butterfly.
Substantial changes have also been made in the packet video
program (PVP) that runs in the Butterfly to accommodate the
packetization scheme for the new codec.
The Image 30 boards give us several advantages compared to the
ISI-built experimental codecs we used previously. First, they
produce color video instead of black and white. Second, we
have four of them so we will be able to expand soon from two
to four teleconference sites. Third, the Image 30 takes two
camera inputs, so we have at each site the room-view camera
plus a copy-stand camera. To control camera switching and
full-screen/quadrant selection, we have implemented a video
control panel using software buttons in a small window sharing
the Sun screen with MMCONF/Diamond.
The new codecs were used for a tele-meeting of the Distributed
Systems Architecture Board on March 25. The resolution of the
video image wasn't bad for the room view, but was insufficient
for viewgraphs on the copy stand. We will be implementing a
high-resolution, low-frame-rate mode for this purpose. Steve
Casner went to Boston to instalal packet video equipment at
BBN, March 20-21.
Steve Casner, Eve Schooler, Dave Walden (Casner@ISI.EDU)
Brian Hung continues to work on the echo canceller algorithm.
Brian did some simulation studies on the effect of arithmetic
errors on the stability of the algorithm. The studies showed
that there were two places in his algorithm where arithmetic
errors were significant enough to cause instability. In one
place it involved accumulation of 16 bit sums where 32 bit
Westine [Page 3]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
accumulation was called for and the other place involved
truncation errors where round-off was required.
Brian is currently implementing the PCM/binary conversion
routine for the echo canceller algorithm.
Brian Hung (Hung@ISI.EDU)
NSFNET Project
Bob Braden and Annette DeSchon produced Release 2.1 of NNStat,
which includes the complete source. It also contains an
extensively-revised document which should be more helpful to
users of the package. A separate document on the internal
algorithms of statspy was also written; both are being
published as ISI reports. Annette also made some improvements
in the Background File Transfer program BFTP.
Braden attended the IETF meeting in San Diego, Feb 29 to Mar
3, to join the Working Group on Host Requirements. He also
attended a one-day video teleconference of the IAB.
Bob Braden and Annette DeSchon (Braden@ISI.EDU,
DeSchon@ISI.EDU)
Supercomputer and Workstation Communication Project
Alan Katz worked on a Mandlebrot set graphics viewer that runs
under the X Window system.
Alan Katz (Katz@ISI.EDU)
MIT-LCS
-------
No relevant progress to report for March.
Lixia Zhang (Lixia@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU)
NTA-RE and NDRE
---------------
1. Paal Spilling received a message from the central part of the
administration that COMSAT now has the equipment available and
that the repointing of the antenna at Tanum will be effec-
tuated a week or two from now! The installation of the 9.6
kb/s line to RSRE has been delayed and will definitely not be
Westine [Page 4]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
in place when the antenna is being repointed. NTA is also
looking into the possibility of setting up a 64 kb/s line via
Tanum - Etam/Roaring Creek or a Ku-band connection directly
from Norway to Washington. The latter possibility will not be
available before June. It is also not clear how the US part
of such a line should connect into Internet. This will be
taken up with DARPA/BBN.
2. One part of the Norwegian research internet, covering the
universities and some research institutions, are operational.
10 - 15 Cisco boxes are utilized as IP-routers.
3. NTA-RE is in the final planning stage for a project in
packet-switched satellite communication. A three-site testbed
will be established hopefully at the end of this year, using
WBNET technology, to interconnect local area networks at the
three test sites. After a test and experimentation period of
two to three years, it is the meaning to put the network into
public service.
Paal Spilling (paal@tor.nta.no)
SRI
---
Internet Research
A paper titled "An Open-Systems Model for Computer-Supported
Collaboration", by J.J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves, Earl J. Craighill,
and Ruth Lang, was published in the Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE
Conference on Workstations. This paper explores the functions
and structure of systems for computer-supported collaborative
work (CSCW) to share information and to use its resources in an
integrated manner for their mutual collaboration. It describes
MOSAIC, a model for CSCW systems; and discuss a prototype
designed to support collaborative decision making.
J.J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves (garcia@tsca.istc.sri.com)
Distributed Applications
We have installed the TACTICS II distributed system (first
reported in July and August 1987 issues of Internet Monthly) at
the Combined Arms Center (CAC) Fort Leavenworth, KC and at Com-
munications Experiment Command (CECOM) Fort Monmouth, NJ.
The CAC system includes a Sun 3/280 fileserver, a Sun 3/60
fileserver and nine diskless Sun 3/60 client workstations on an
Westine [Page 5]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
Ethernet LAN. The TACTICS II software installed on these sys-
tems consists of five independent databases each sharing a sin-
gle copy of the resource management system and name server.
These five databases were configured to support four classroom
accounts and a software demonstration account. For each data-
base, a database server is running that allows remote access and
updates a directory that contains tactical information.
The CECOM system includes a Sun 3/260 fileserver, two Sun 3/50
clients, and a Sun 2/120 fileserver across an Ethernet. Similar
to the CAC system configuration, the TACTICS II software here
consists of a single copy of the resource management system
shared by two fileservers and two clients. It is different from
the CAC configuration in that a single database was created for
the entire LAN but is also replicated across the two
fileservers. Client applications generating queries to this
database would select the database server "closest" to it based
on a best server heuristic and host performance monitoring
scheme.
Ron Lee (rlee@spam.istc.sri.com)
UCL
---
Operations:
The UK triangle is now operating on 64kbps on all lines and
performance and availability are good.
We are now running tests on a subnet with a microvax and a Cisco
gateway with an Ethernet and X.25 line. This is the system that
will be moving to ULCC to run the UK JANET to US NSF internet
relay.
Research:
The work on TCP/IP and SATNET measurements is now fairly complete,
and a report will be forthcoming.
The Thorn directory service is now being heavily used by the
Department for a number of yellow page type services, and is being
evaluated for supporting ISO network management information bases.
John Crowcroft (jon@CS.UCL.AC.UK)
Westine [Page 6]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
----------------------
1. In an effort to evaluate the effect of the source-quench
policy recently implemented for the NSFNET Backbone fuzzballs,
Mike Minnich set up an experiment involving a Sun workstation
with the modified Jacobsen/Karels TCP and a UDel fuzzball
connected between the Sun Ethernet and a 9600-bps upstream
serial line. The experiment showed a thirty-percent reduction
in queue size for the upstream line when source quench was
activated. While confirming the policy does work, the
experiment also showed the need for further experiments to
evaluate the effectiveness for various types of traffic and
traffic distributions.
2. Another experiment was designed to evaluate the current
performance of the Backbone with respect to previous
performance, as well as gauge the effectiveness of recent
changes in queueing disciplines, including the source-quench
implementation. In July 1988 the Backbone aggregate traffic
load per queue ranged from 0.3 to 4.0 packets per second, with
a mean of 2.0. At that time the preemption rate was .06 and
timeout rate .03 percent. Now, several months after quench
was installed, the load ranges from 2.6 to 9.2 packets per
second, with a mean of 4.7. The preemption rate is 0.37,
timeout rate 0.11 and quench rate 0.27 percent. The traffic on
the sixteen 56-Kbps internodal trunks has doubled from 31.5 to
over 71 packets per second, but the aggregate loss rate is
still well below the system objective of one percent. A memo
describing the experiment and results was circulated to the
various engineering lists.
3. A third experiment was designed to reveal the cause of
reported glitches in Backbone connectivity, but here
definitive results remain tantalizingly elusive. As shown
above, performance between the Backbone fuzzballs themselves
is generally very good, although questions remain about
apparent lockup of the DEQNA interfaces at the Ethernet
demarcations. However, it was confirmed with ICMP echo and
NTP time messages that at least some of the NSFNET/ARPANET
gateways occasionally experience delay spasms of 30 seconds or
more, presumably due to known X.25 problems, but gateway logs
do not readily confirm this as the cause. Occasionally severe
churn (rate of change of routes and/or distances) is observed
(via EGP) in the BBN core gateways for some NSFNET clients,
but not others, even though both are reported by the same
gateway. These issues remain to be resolved.
Westine [Page 7]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
4. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) implementation for the
fuzzball was again revised in light of recent experience with
broken clocks (at one point only one out of five radio clocks
was working), severe mains-frequency jitter and wander and
just plain bugs. In an effort to find out why the mains-
frequency clocks were so much worse when synchronized with NTP
than when synchronized by Hellospeak, a simple phase-lock loop
simulator was implemented using the existing NTP loop filter.
The results showed the loop was in fact unstable with the US
and German national power grids, so the loop filter was
redesigned. Stable, updated fuzzware is now in place at most
primary and secondary servers.
5. The document "Network Time Protocol (Version 1): Specification
and Implementation" has again been revised in light of several
suggestions and the above changes. Mike Petry has completed a
companion NTP daemon for Unix 4.3bsd, which is now in test.
6. Dave Mills attended the Gigabit Working Group meeting at
Stanford, the IAB telemeeting at MCI Washington, an NRC
meeting on survivable telephone networks at NAS Washington and
presented a tutorial on Internet protocols at INFOCOM 88 in
New Orleans. A paper on the seventeen-year swampy trek of the
Fuzzball was completed and submitted to SIGCOM 88.
Dave Mills (Mills@UDEL.EDU)
Westine [Page 8]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
NSF NETWORKING
--------------
UCAR/BBN LABS NNSC
The NNSC published the third issue of the NSF Network News and
announced a two-day tutorial on the domain system to be held at the
NNSC on April 28 and 29.
Craig Partridge attended the adhoc Network Management Review
meeting, the Internet Engineering Task Force meeting and gave a
presentation at the Interface '88 Conference in Chicago.
By Karen Roubicek (roubicek@nnsc.nsf.net)
NEW NSFNET BACKBONE
As of 24 March, MCI has installed and completed initial data
circuit testing of all T1 links to the 13 NSFNET sites ahead of
their 1 April scheduled completion date. Traffic is flowing on the
test network among Ann Arbor; Reston, VA; Milford, CT; and
Yorktown, NY. An early version of the NSS software is currently
being installed on the four nodes of the test network as well as
the first operational node currently being build for Ann Arbor.
The Ann Arbor test network node currently uses only four RT/PCs: a
Routing Control Processor (RCP), an External Packet Switching
Processor (E-PSP), and two Packet Switching Processors (PSPs) with
synchronous cards. The NSS is currently located next to the IBM
4381 Information Services (IS) machine, which is also connected to
the network. Testing of FTP on the IS machine is nearly completed.
Information should soon be providable via anonymous FTP and SMTP
mail from the IS machine. The NOC IBM 4381 should also be
installed shortly.
Westine [Page 9]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
NSFNET Backbone and Test Network T1 circuits:
* Yorktown (IBM)
/ \
/ \
Seattle / \
* Milford (IBM) * Test- * Reston (MCI)
\ \ nwk /
\ \ / * Ithaca
\ Ann Arbor\ / / \
\ /---------------------*---\ / \
\ / \ / \
\ /Boulder \ / \ \
\ *-------*-------* Pittsburgh * ------* Princeton
\ SL City / Lincoln /| /
\ / / | /
* \ / /-----------*--------/ | *
Palo \ \ / / Urbana-Ch. | College Park
Alto \ \ / / /
\ \/ / /
\------*------/ /
San Diego /
*
Houston
In a move designed to simplify final installation at the remote
sites and optimize the path to network production, most of the
hardware and software for all NSS nodes will be assembled, undergo
basic testing, and be re-packaged for final shipment at Merit
facilities in Ann Arbor. A combined team of IBM and Merit people
has begun assembling the Ann Arbor pilot node. Starting 11 April
we plan on three nodes per week to be assembled, tested, and
packaged for shipment to sites. The assembly will continue until
all thirteen nodes are completed. The IDNX and Verilink CSUs will
be shipped directly to the remote locations for installation and
end-to-end physical network testing by MCI and IBM prior to the
shipment of NSS equipment.
By Laura Kelleher (lkelleher@merit.edu)
Westine [Page 10]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
NSFNET BACKBONE SITES
CORNELL UNIVERSITY THEORY CENTER
As of 27 March, 1988, there were 157 networks being advertised on
NSFNET. The networks that were added in February and March are
listed following this report.
Jeff Honig and Scott Brim are working hard with the IBM and Merit
folks to modify the gated software in support of the new NSFnet
backbone. This includes support for the use of gated on the
gateways to the regional networks and the portions of gated used in
the Nodal Switching Subsystems. In the past two months, development
work on gated has included many EGP fixes, enhancement of EGP
tracing, additional validation of networks sent and received via
EGP, martian filtering for all protocols, fixes and improvements to
the interface timeout code and improvements to the debugging code.
A number of these modifications have recently been made available
to several sites for beta test. More testing is in order before
another version is released.
IBM and Cornell have continued joint investigation on 8232
performance and TCP loops in VM/TCP and VM/XA/SP1/TCP. Mike
Hojnowski gave a presentation at the Spring SHARE meeting on VM
TCP/IP User Experiences.
Doug Elias is preparing the Statspy data processing code and
documentation for distribution to interested parties.
The video tapes of the Networking Workshop, held in August 1988,
with Vint Cerf, Bob Braden, and Dave Mills are ready for
distribution.
Alison Brown, Associate Director of Advanced Computing and
Networks, has accepted the position of Associate Director of the
Ohio Supercomputing Center. She will be acting as Director of
OARnet (Ohio Academic Resources Network) in her new role. She will
assume her new position in mid-April. With her departure, those who
normally communicate with Alison on networking topics should now
contact Scott Brim.
Westine [Page 11]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
Networks added to the NSFNET Routing Tables during February and March.
BARRNet
36 Stanford
128.32 UC-BERKELEY
128.114 UC-SANTACRUZ
128.120 UC-DAVIS
128.218 UC-SAN-FRAN
NORTHEASTNet
128.197 BU
129.10 NORTHEASTERN
129.133 WESLEYAN
128.36 YALE
192.26.88 YALE
NORTHWESTNet
128.208 UWASH
129.95 OGCNET
NYSERNet
129.3 OSWEGO
192.31.254 ALFRED
SURAnet
192.31.192 IDA/SRC
129.28 ETA
129.43 NCIFCRF
129.57 CEBAF
128.239 WM-NET
WESTNet
128.123 NMSU
129.24 UMN
129.121 NMT
129.138 NMIMT
MISCnets
128.200 UC-IRVINE
129.176 MAYO
192.35.81 WISC-PARK
By Martyne Hallgren (martyne@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu)
Westine [Page 12]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN/NCSANET
The 56Kbps line to Univ of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was installed March
31. We estimate that they will be on-line approximately April 12,
when their Proteon router arrives. The T1 for the University of
Chicago should also be up and running within the next week or two,
with Northwestern's T1 not far behind. Fermi Nat'l Lab is
installing a 14.2Kbps IP connection (no DECnet on this one) and we
expect this to be up shortly.
UIUC ARPANET connection went into production. Now gateways NSFNET
and ARPANET for all points west of Champaign, without own
connections. Corrected long standing configuration problem with
Fuzzbal DMV11's dip switch wrong cause long recovery after error.
These two items have significantly improved NSFNET performance.
By Ed Krol (krol@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu)
JOHN VON NEUMANN NATIONAL SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER
No report received.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH AND UNIVERSITY SATELLITE
NETWORK PROJECT
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has finally come on-line as a
USAN site. The directly connected network at NRL is 128.60 and the
USAN gateway node is 128.116.30.1.
By Don Morris (morris@scdsw1.ucar.edu)
PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER
IP and Decnet routers are now in place between Carnegie-Mellon
University's campus net and PSCnet. Arrangements are being made to
install a Proteon P4200 between the University of Pittsburgh net
and PSCnet.
During March a new kernel with a beta version of the ACC 5250
driver was brought up on PSC-GW in preparation for a new version
doubling the number of available virtual circuits. This new driver
along with resolution of the PSN 7.0 and new End-to-End code on the
ARPANET should allow for better and more consistent connectivity.
PSCnet connections using Proteon P4200's running version 7.4 are
now in place on the campuses of seven of our Academic Affiliates.
We are providing name service for those institutions that have
requested it.
Westine [Page 13]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
Efforts are being made toward connecting PSC-GW2, our second
Arpanet gateway, to PSN #21 which recently became functional during
February on our premises. Two trunks are currently installed and
connected, and a third has been installed but has not yet been
connected to the PSN here.
Four DS/1 circuits have been terminated here for the new NSFnet
backbone connections.
By David O'Leary (oleary@godot.psc.edu)
SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER
A group from "Task Force 100" will visit SDSC on April 1 to
activate our PSN's trunk connections. This is much sooner than
last month's Tiger Team had indicated so, to whoever this should
go, thanks for the speedup!
We are now supporting NorthWestNet via our trusty p4200. We have
upgraded the software to 7.4b. No anomallies were observed during
the month. NWNet is scheduled to be turned-up in GATED on April 1.
We have ported client RSH to the Cray OS, CTSS. It is in test this
month and should be in production use sometime during April.
By Paul Love (loveep@sds.sdsc.edu)
NSFNET MID-LEVEL NETWORKS
BARRNET (No report received)
JVNCNET (Refer to JVNNSC backbone report)
MERIT/UMNET
An Ethernet IP subnetwork was added on a Wayne State University
Secondary Communications Processor (SCP) (WSC1). At Oakland
University an Ethernet link for IP support will be added to the OK
Primary Communications Processor (PCP). We are now using a Cisco
gateway for our HDH ARPANET link as well as for the Ethernet USAN
connection.
By Laura Kelleher (lkelleher@merit.edu)
Westine [Page 14]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
MIDNET
Not much new has happened. I am now using the SGMP software
provided by Jeff Case and Ken Key at Tennessee.It is proving
usefull in monitoring the routers in MIDnet. Several sites have
gotten their name servers running and are looking foreward to the
tutorials on Bind at the end of April. The individual sites are
making more progress all the time in getting their local networks
extended throughtout the campuses.
By Dale Finkelson (dmf@fergvax.unl.edu)
MRNET
MRNet activities during March consisted of reviewing membership
applications for charter members and discussing facilities
requirements (security, hardware, etc.). Members currently online,
who thus have direct acces to NSFnet include ETA Systems, the Mayo
Foundation, the Minnesota Supercomputer Center, and the University
of Minnesota. Cray Research is also indirectly connected to MRNet
at this time, and also has access to NSFnet. Cray is in the
process of upgrading their connection to MRNet to a more direct
one. Connections for Control Data Corporation, 3M, Carleton
College, and St. Olaf College are pending.
MRNet's representatives attended the presentation in Ann Arbor of
the Merit/IBM/MCI high speed NSFnet trunk network, now under
construction. They also participated in the business activities of
the Federation of Research Networks, and applied to be full members
of same.
A host somewhere on NSFnet, sending routing-information packets
claiming to come from an MRNet IP address, had been causing very
unreliable access from MRNet to much of the NSF Internet, possibly
for several months. The errant host has not been located, but we
are working around the problem. NSFnet no longer appears to be
unusable.
Ken Carlson (kcg@uf.msc.umn.edu)
NCSANET (Refer to UIUC & NCSAnet backbone report)
NORTHWESTNET (No report received)
Westine [Page 15]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
NYSERNET
NYSERNet had the following topology:
Clarkson
Syracuse--+ | NISC
| | |
Rochester--------Cornell---------RPI---Albany
| || ||
| ....Alfred || ||
Buffalo...Fredonia || ||
| ....Oswego || ||
| || ||
Binghamton || +-------- || ------StonyBrook
| || | ||
| || | ||
CUNY--NYTEL/NSMAC--Columbia======NYU==Rockefeller
| |\ | | /| | ||
| | \ | NYNEX/S&T / | | ||
| | \ BNL / | | WP/CO
| | \ / | |
| | +-------------POLY---+ | |
| | | |
| +------------------------------+ |
| |
+--------------------------------------+
||
==== || T1
||
\ | / 56kbits
.... 9.6kbits
In March:
Mark Fedor participated in a "routing integration" meeting at IBM
Yorktown Heights on regional network to NSS connectivity.
About 70 licenses were distributed for our SGMP/SNMP
implementation.
Two new members joined: GE Corporate Research and Development and
Grumman.
By Martin Schoffstall (schoff@nisc.nyser.net)
Westine [Page 16]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
OARNET
As February came to a close, OARnet (Ohio Academic Resources
Network) was connected to the NSFNet backbone via a link to The
Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center.
OARnet is a regional network connecting over 20 Colleges and
Universities in the state of Ohio with the Ohio Supercomputer
Center via fiber optic lines. A variety of networking protocols
are supported providing access to national and international
networks. The supported protocols are: TCP/IP, Decnet, and NJE
bisync (BITNET).
OARnet has applied for membership in the NSFNet Federation.
By Paul Buerger (paul@rigel.osc.ohio-state.edu)
SDSCNET (Refer to SDSC backbone report)
SESQUINET
The complete initially proposed SesquiNet configuration, now
augmented by Prairie View A&M, has been operational now for several
months. The following campus networks are being served, and are
advertised via EGP to the core:
Baylor College of Medicine 128.249
BCM-Technologies 192.31.88
Houston Area Research Center 192.31.87
Prairie View A&M University 129.208
Rice University 128.42
Texas A&M University 128.194
Texas Southern University 192.31.101
and the University of Houston 129.7
The serial line from NSFnet/NCAR to SesquiNet/Rice has been
operational for several months, and routes to SesquiNet via NSFnet
are now being advertised. Performance is very good.
One accomplishment this month has been an analysis of those
destination networks advertised both by NSFnet and by the Core
Gateways. In the case of each network reachable through both of
these national networks, we have used Ping (very conservatively) to
study the optimal route to take on average. The results are used
to statically favor either NSFnet or the Arpanet on a network by
network basis. We dynamically obtain reachability information (via
EGP for the Arpanet and via Hello for the NSFnet); if a given
network is not reachable via the statically favored route, the
Westine [Page 17]
Internet Monthly Report March 1988
other is used.
We are also testing cisco's support for 1822-HDH Arpanet support.
We have found and had fixed a small number of bugs in this support,
and are now using it operationally.
We will soon resume our testing cisco's support for dual protocol
(IP and DECnet) routing.
By Guy Almes (almes@rice.edu)
SURANET (No report received)
WESTNET
1. This has been a month of great activity for Westnet schools,
beginning with a meeting on March 8, of the Westnet Steering
Committee, consisting of University Computer Center Directors
from all sixteen Westnet sites. This was the first formal
meeting of this group, and entailed establishing an adminis-
trative structure, planning for the installation of hardware
and circuits, and establishing the parameters under which
Westnet will operate. A great deal of information transfer
also took place, concerning the Backbone activity, the status
of campus LAN's, and possible steady-state models for Westnet
when NSF funding ceases.
2. The New Mexico universities and New Mexico Technet now have
full access to the Internet, and the situation appears to have
stabilized without much difficulty.
3. We are exploring means for the "western half" of Westnet to
obtain access to the Internet between the time (in April) when
the circuits are installed, and the time (in July) when the
IBM NSS is scheduled to become operational at the University
of Utah. Sergio Hecker has given permission for these "western
half" schools to route to the Internet through the satellite
link at the University of Arizona to JVNNC. However, we are
still exploring the possibility of routing through the ARPANET
IMP at the University of Utah. This latter path would be more
desirable, as it would minimize reconfiguration of routing
tables in July.
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4. cisco has asked us to be a beta test site for their version of
Marty Schoffstall's SGMP, which is expected to be available to
us in April.
5. The University of Colorado at Boulder and Digital Equipment
Corporation jointly hosted a networking conference entitled
"Net Show Spring '88." The conference was attended by over 100
people from diverse locations.
By Pat Burns (pburns%csugreen.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu)
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TASK FORCE REPORTS
------------------
APPLICATIONS -- USER INTERFACE
The task force held its third meeting February 10-11 at
Information Sciences Institute. The major topics of
discussion were user interface architecture, voice
integration, teleconferencing, and document interchange. The
resulting highlights were:
- There has been some convergence toward a reference model for
user interface software, as documented in K.A. Lantz, et al.
"Reference Models, Window Systems, and Concurrency," Computer
Graphics, April 1987.
- This convergence may, in fact, be mildly counter-productive,
in that the model as presented in the referenced document does
not adequately address issues surrounding collaborative work,
in particular, sharing of applications in the context of a
real-time teleconference. Fortunately, both SRI and Olivetti
are addressing this problem.
- Interest in the PC-based voice server has blossomed, with
servers now in place at Olivetti, Sun, ANSA, and ISI---in
addition to the Media Lab. Various PC-compatibles have been
employed, with two different voice boards---the Dialog/2 board
from Dialogic Corp. and the TI Speech Board. The only
difference between servers based on the two speech boards is
that the TI board does not support pause detection. The
server library interface is in the process of being refined,
including the specification of upload/download functions. An
RFC is (still) forthcoming.
- Olivetti Research Center, in collaboration with Chris
Schmandt, is designing a version of the voice system that
eliminates the PC. It will consist of an AT-bus voice board
coupled with a UNIX server process. The server process is
being designed in the mold of a window system---with multiple
voice "channels", for example. Unfortunately, this has
necessitated considerable redesign of the server interface.
- Steve Casner (casner@isi.edu) has formed a working group to
assess the state of the art in "workstation video". People
actively engaged in the integration of live video into
contemporary workstation environments should contact him as
soon as possible.
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- It was agreed that the "integrative" approach to desktop
teleconferencing promoted in K.A. Lantz, "An Experiment in
Integrated Multimedia Conferencing," Proc. Conference on
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, December 1986, has been
vindicated (although not necessarily to the exclusion of other
approaches) by the many similar systems developed
subsequently---including Rapport at AT&T Bell Labs, Shared X
at HP Labs, VISEX at MCC, and the MOSAIC reference model at
SRI International. However, many problems remain, including:
maintenance of consistent context in the face of replicated
applications; conference management; voice and video
integration; and the integration of teleconferencing within
the framework of a uniform model for collaborative system (see
second point above).
- There is need for additional work in the area of "media
synchronization", that is, the synchronization of multiple
data streams being transmitted on multiple communications
channels (logical or physical). This is an issue whenever the
communications channels differ in delay or bandwidth
characteristics, or the sending and receiving hosts differ
markedly in performance. Joe Sventek of the ANSA project is
the most involved of the task force members in these issues.
Complete minutes will be posted to UI-INTEREST momentarily.
The next meeting will be June 20-23 in the Bay Area.
Keith Lantz (Lantz@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU)
AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS
The Autonomous Networks Task force is planning a partial
meeting in conjunction with the IEEE Symposium on Security and
Privacy in Oakland California, April 18-20. We will hold a
full meeting in California (probably LA) during the summer.
Our current focus is on articulating IRI/FRICC requirements
for accounting and access control.
Deborah Estrin (Estrin@OBERON.USC.EDU)
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END-TO-END SERVICES
No progress to report this month.
Bob Braden (Braden@ISI.EDU)
INTERNET ARCHITECTURE
Activity was low this month, but sunspot numbers are up.
Dave Mills (Mills@HUEY.UDEL.EDU)
INTERNET ENGINEERING
1. Network Management Review Committee
On February 29, 1988, an ad hoc review committee on network
management met at the request of the IAB. Attendees consisted
primarily of 1) representatives of the CMIS/CMIP, SGMP and
HEMS network management efforts and 2) representatives of the
IAB and IETF. The meeting was chaired by Vint Cerf.
The purpose of the meeting was to review the various network
management activities and to recommend to the IAB a course of
action for both near-term and longer-term network management
development. Vint Cerf has prepared a report summarizing the
resulting conclusions and recommendations. This report has
now been issued as RFC1052.
Some of the major points, in brief, include:
o designation of SGMP (possibly with some extensions)
as the focus for near-term Internet/network management,
o focusing on CMIS/CMIP as the longer-term solution,
o tasking the IETF with the expeditious formation of two
working groups:
1) to develop a Management Information Base (MIB) for
the TCP/IP protocols to be used jointly by SGMP
and CMIS/CMIP, and
2) to consider what extensions, if any, might be needed
to SGMP to address any specific vendor concerns and
to ease the eventual transition to CMIS/CMIP.
In accordance with these recommendations, the IETF has begun
the formation of the above two working groups. Craig Partridge
has been asked to chair the MIB working group. For more
information on that activity, contact Craig directly
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(craig@nnsc.nsf.net). The group to consider extensions to
SGMP (now renamed to SNMP, for Simple Network Management
Protocol) is still being formed. More detailed information on
the SNMP extensions group will be announced as it develops.
Since this work will depend in part on the MIB, it is
appropriate for the MIB group to begin meeting first.
2. March 1-3 IETF Plenary
On March 1-3, 1988, the IETF met at the San Diego
Supercomputer Center. The meeting was hosted by Paul Love,
who continued the trend of excellent local arrangements and
fine weather set by earlier meetings. The agenda was
distributed in last month's report. The Proceedings are still
in preparation.
3. Previous Proceedings
We have established a procedure by which IETF Proceedings will
be available through the NIC. They currently have Proceedings
from the November meeting at NCAR and the July meeting at
MITRE. Contact Mary Stahl (stahl@sri-nic.arpa) for
information on how to obtain copies.
4. New IDEAS
There have been 10 new IDEAS issued since the March 1-3
meeting. IDEAS can be retrieved by anonymous FTP from the
<ietf> directory at SRI-NIC.ARPA. The file IDEA-INDEX-ABS.TXT
contains an annotated index of all IDEAS.
o IDEA009.TXT - `Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP),
Version 3', Marianne Gardner (BBN) and
Mike Karels (UCBerkeley)
o IDEA010.TXT - `A Laboratory For Testing DOD Protocol
Implementations: It's Architecture And
Methodologies', John Swanson and Jose
Rodriguez (UNISYS McLean Research Center)
o IDEA011.TXT - `A Simple Network Management Protocol',
Jeffrey Case (U of TN), Mark Fedor
(NYSERnet Inc.), Martin Schoffstall (RPI),
and James Davin (Proteon Inc.)
o IDEA012.TXT - 'Network Management for TCP/IP Network:
An Overview', A. Ben-Artzi (Sytek)
o IDEA013.TXT - 'Structure and Identification of Management
Information for the Internet',
Lee LaBarre (MITRE)
o IDEA014.TXT - `Kerberos Authentication and Authorization
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Internet Monthly Report March 1988
System', S. P. Miller, B. C. Neuman,
J.I. Schiller, and J.H. Saltzer (all of MIT)
o IDEA015.TXT - `Host Extensions for IP Multicasting',
S. E. Deering (Stanford)
o IDEA016.TXT - `TELNET LOCALEDIT OPTION', Dave Borman
(Cray Research)
o IDEA017.TXT - `ISO Presentation Services on top of
TCP/IP-based Internets', Marshall T Rose
(The Wollongong Group)
o IDEA018.TXT - `System Load', Inder Sidhu, N Arunkumar
(Bridge)
Phill Gross (gross@gateway.mitre.org)
INTERNET MANAGEMENT
No report received.
PRIVACY
As noted in the February report, the IAB Privacy Task Force
had a productive two-day meeting at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in Livermore, California on 2 and 3 March.
Attendees were: Dave Balenson, Curt Barker, Don Brinkley,
Morrie Gasser, Steve Kent, John Linn, Dan Nessett, and Steve
Wilbur. A number of messages were exchanged among the task
force membership during March to continue discussion of topics
raised at the meeting, particularly with regard to detailed
RFC-1040 implementation and specification issues.
Steve Kent travelled to SRI on 4 March and met with members of
the IETF authentication working group (AWG) that afternoon.
Mike St. Johns from the DDN PMO was present, along with Jeff
Schiller and John Rochlis from Project Athena (MIT).
Agreement was reached that key management should be handled
independently from application of cryptography to specific
protocols. Thus the AWG will work with other IETF members to
develop specifications for securing SNMP (the recently renamed
SGMP), e.g., specifying which fields are to be encrypted and
or MACed and how IVs and key ids shall be represented in
messages. The specs will indicate how to look up the
appropriate key in a local key cache, based on addresses in
the message or key ids. Issues associated with how the key
cache is filled will NOT be addressed in the SNMP
specifications. Thus one can begin with manual key
distribution for initial testing (or for small systems) and
migrate to various automated schemes as time passes. Thus
adoption of Kerberos or other key management schemes as part
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of the SNMP spec is not considered appropriate.
The next privacy task force meeting is scheduled for
Wednesday-Thursday, 15-16 June 1988 at DEC, Littleton, MA.
John Linn (Linn@CCY.BBN.COM)
ROBUSTNESS AND SURVIVABILITY
No report received.
SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING
No report received.
SECURITY
No report received.
TACTICAL INTERNET
No report received.
TESTING AND EVALUATION
No report received.