<NIS.NSF.NET> [IMR] IMR90-04.TXT
April 1990
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).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTERNET ACTIVITIES BOARD
IAB MESSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3
INTERNET RESEARCH REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 4
AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 4
END-TO-END SERVICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 5
PRIVACY AND SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 5
COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 7
INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 7
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Internet Projects
BARRNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 15
BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 15
CERFNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16
CICNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18
CORNELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18
ISI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18
JVNCNET, NORTH EAST RESEARCH REGIONAL NETWORK . . . . . . page 21
LOS NETTOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 23
MERIT/UMNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 24
MIDNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 25
MIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 25
MITRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 26
MRNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 26
NCAR/USAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 27
NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK . . . . . . . . page 27
NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . page 27
NORTHWESTNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 29
NSFNET BACKBONE, MERIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 30
NTA-RE/NDRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 30
NYSERNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 30
OARNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 30
Pennsylvania Research and Economic Partnership Network . page 30
PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 31
RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeans) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 31
SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 31
SESQUINET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 31
SRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 31
SURANET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 32
TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION NETWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 32
UCL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 32
UDEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 32
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN/NCSANET . . . page 33
WESTNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 34
WISCNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 34
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Internet Monthly Report April 1990
IAB MESSAGE
A. MEETING
The IAB held a video teleconference on May 26, 1990. Minutes of
this meeting will be published as soon as possible.
B. STANDARDS ACTIONS
During April, the IAB took the following actions concerning
Internet standards, following recommendations from the IESG. These
changes will be reflected in the next edition of the IAB Official
Protocols RFC.
1. Advance to Standard:
SNMP -- Simple Network Management Protocol (RFC-1098)
SMI -- Structure and Identification of Management Information
for TCP/IP-based internets (RFC-1065)
MIB I -- Management Information Base for Network Management
for TCP/IP-based internets (RFC-1066)
2. Advance to Draft Standard:
RFC-1006 -- ISO Transport Service on top of TCP
RIP -- Routing Information Protocol (RFC-1058)
NICNAME -- WhoIs Protocol (RFC-954)
3. Designate as Proposed Standard:
MIB II -- Extensions to MIB
OSPF -- Open Shortest Path First IGP (RFC-1131)
4. Retain as Proposed Standard:
NNTP -- Network News Transfer Protocol (RFC-977)
5. Move back to Experimental:
VMTP -- Versative Message Transaction Protocol (RFC-1045)
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C. STANDARDS STATUS
The IAB has held extensive discussions on possible improvements in
the way that status (e.g., Elective vs. Recommended) and
applicability is attached to Internet protocol specifications, but
decision has not yet been reached on these issues. The intent of
any change would be to give vendors and users better guidance in
determining the relevance of each standard.
The IAB welcomes constructive input from any member of the Internet
community on these and any other issues relating to the
standardization process. Send comments to Vint Cerf, chair of the
IAB (VCerf@NRI.RESTON.VA.US) or to Phill Gross, chair of the IETF
(PGross@NRI.RESTON.VA.US).
D. WORKING WITH ANSI
Three members of the IAB, along with interested IETF members, met
with ANSI X3S3.3 on April 18 and April 20 in Tucson, Arizona. At
that meeting we discussed the possibility of introducing several
new work items for entering IP, ICMP, TCP and UCP into the American
National Standards track. A vote by the members of X3S3.3 was put
off until June 27th, to allow X3S3.3 members to discuss these
proposals with their respective organizations and to come to
conclusions about the advisability and feasibility of entering the
TCP/IP protocols into ANSI.
Joint work with ANSI is already under way within the IETF OSI area,
specifically with respect to the IS-IS dual routing protocols (OSI
and TCP/IP). It is anticipated that joint meetings or, at least,
colocated IETF and ANSI X3S3.3 meetings, will be scheduled in the
future.
Bob Braden (Braden@ISI.EDU)
INTERNET RESEARCH REPORTS
-------------------------
AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS
-------------------
1. The Autonomous Networks research Group held a videoconference
on April 24 to discuss policy and technical issues associated
with resource usage feedback and billing in a commercialized
Internet. We were joined by several visitors, including Scott
Shenker of XEROX PARC and members of the IETF Accounting Working
Group (chaired by Cyndi Mills of bbn cmills@bbn.com).
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We hope to pursue aspects of our discussion through assorted
experiments in DARTnet, as well as in smaller laboratory
setups. Some of the work will be pursued by the IETF Working
Group.
More details will be available once I get the minutes written
up...
2. Policy Routing related work has shifted, for the most part,
to the IETF ORWG, in which I and several other ANRG members are
very active.
Deborah Estrin (Estrin@USC.EDU)
END-TO-END SERVICES
-------------------
No progress to report this month.
Bob Braden (Braden@ISI.EDU)
PRIVACY AND SECURITY
--------------------
The IRTF Privacy and Security RG met April 4-6 at Digital
Equipment Corporation in Boxborough, Massachusetts, with 10
members and four guests, thanks to the hospitality of John Linn.
Topics discussed include:
PRIVACY-ENHANCED MAIL: Representatives of Trusted Information
Systems planned to present their P-E Mail system at the May IETF
meeting in Pittsburgh. TIS's implementation progress has
included a number of improvements to the system's performance
and reworking the key management interfaces to allow for the
later integration of full RFC 1114 key management. Plans were
made at the Boxborough meeting for the first phase beta test of
P-E Mail among PSRG and IAB members, to begin in the coming
month. A mailing list was established for implementation issues
pertaining to P-E Mail, and interested parties may join by
sending a message to "pem-dev-request@tis.com".
Burt Kaliski of RSADSI drafted the fourth part of the P-E Mail
RFC series, which details procedures and forms for certificate-
based user registration, and this was reviewed at the Boxborough
meeting.
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Internet Monthly Report April 1990
BBN has received funding for and will begin implementation of
prototype hardware to support on-site user registration and
generation of signed certificates, an alternative to the co-
issuing arrangement detailed in RFC 1114, that would allow
greater organizational autonomy and lower per-user cost in the
registration process.
Mike Taylor and John Linn of DEC presented and successfully
demonstrated DEC's implementation of P-E Mail at the Boxborough
meeting. This system is implemented under VMS and runs within
DEC's TPU text processing environment.
POLICY-BASED ROUTING: Martha Steenstrup and Isidro Castineyra of
BBN and the IETF Open Routing Working Group were guests at the
Boxborough meeting, and the ORWG's architecture for Inter-Domain
Policy-Based routing was presented. The PSRG offered its input
on a number of security-related issues in the proposed
architecture, including tradeoffs for maintaining authenticated
data in routing data bases in light of the restrictions imposed
by cryptographic speeds and storage space for signatures, and
general tradeoffs of timestamps and serial numbers.
LABELLING FRAMEWORK: Russ Housley presented the most recent
draft of the labelling framework RFC he is working on, and
discussion at the Boxborough meeting suggested further
refinements to text defining integrity labels and sensitivity
labels. Russ planned to submit text being produced under this
task for a security labelling workshop planned for the end of
May at NIST.
SNMP AUTHENTICATION: The PSRG reviewed the SNMP Authentication
draft produced by the IETF Authentication WG. Much of the
discussion centered on the choice of the Quadratic Congruential
Manipulation Detection Code as the authentication algorithm, and
the modes in which the drafts recommends that the QCMDC be used.
The PSRG passed on its comments to authors of the draft for
consideration at the May IETF meeting.
SECURITY ARCHITECTURE: The PSRG undertook a task, proposed in
discussion between RG Chair Steve Kent and IESG Security
Directory Steve Crocker, to produce an Internet Security
Architecture to serve as a framework for further security-
related protocol work in the Internet Engineering and Research
communities. Rob Shirey agreed to begin work on this task, and
an outline for this document is expected to be discussed at the
next RG meeting.
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The next PSRG meeting is planned for July 31-August 3 at
University of British Columbia in conjunction with the UBC IETF
meeting, to allow for joint meetings between the PSRG and IETF
WGs working on security issues.
Ken Rossen (kenr@BBN.COM)
COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY
------------------------
No report received.
INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS
----------------------------
IETF CHAIR'S REPORT
Chair: Phill Gross/NRI
The IETF will meet at the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center and the
Software Engineering Institute at CMU on May 1-4, 1990. The
meeting will be hosted by Gene Hastings, with much help from SEI,
Prepnet and Bell of Pa. The agenda for that meeting has been
distributed on the ietf@isi.edu mailing list.
There will be an open IESG meeting on Thursday afternoon from ~4-7
pm. This will be the third open IESg session since the steering
group was formed last summer. In this session, we will follow-up
topics from the FSU session, namely, the status of the IAB
standardization process and grandfathered Internet standards. We
will also discuss the new recent initiative by the IAB and ANSI to
submit certain TCP/IP protocols to ANSI standardization.
I want to encourage comments and input from the plenary during the
IESG session, so I intend to change the format slightly. Rather
than run this session as an IESG meeting, I would like this to be
more of an open plenary session in which all attendees can feel
free to participate.
Reporting from the various Areas may seem a bit light this month
due to the upcoming meeting. There will be a more comprehensive
report on the meeting in next month's report.
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APPLICATIONS AREA
Director: Russ Hobby/UCDavis
This month two new Working Groups have been created.
1) The Network Database Working Group is being chaired by Clifford
Lynch (lynch@postgres.berkeley.edu) from the Division of Library
Automation at the University of California, Office of the
President. The first task of the WG is to define the method for
SQL communication over TCP/IP networks. This should be a simple
mapping into the TCP/IP world of the work that has been done for
OSI.
After the first task, the WG will continue work to define the use
of American National Standard Z39.50, an information retrieval
protocol, on TCP/IP networks.
2) The Network FAX Working Group is being chaired by Mark Needleman
(mhn@lilac.berkeley.edu), also from UC Division of Library
Automation. This WG will define a protocol for FAX devices
connected to the Internet. This protocol will allow direct FAX to
FAX communications over a TCP/IP network. It should be noted that
this communication is different than some of the current methods
defined for including FAX images in electronic mail.
Mail lists for these two WG will be created shortly. In the mean
time if you interested in either subject, contact the WG chair.
HOST AND USER SERVICES AREA
At the January IETF, we decided to disband the networked graphics
WG because it was felt that we could not attract enough networking
experts to IETF. Instead, we decided to see if we could encourage
SIGCOMM and SIGGRAPH to put together a workshop on the inter-
actions between networking and graphics. It appears that such a
workshop will actually be held in late 1990 or early 1991 at NCAR.
We expect an official announcement shortly.
INTERNET SERVICES AREA
Director: Noel Chiappa/Consultant
Report not received.
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NETWORK MANAGEMENT AREA
Director: Dave Crocker/DEC
Report not received.
OSI INTEGRATION AREA
Directors: Ross Callon/DEc and Rob Hagens/UWisconsin
Report not received.
OPERATIONS AREA
Director: Phill Gross/NRI (Interim Director)
The Topology Engineering WG (TEWG), Benchmarking Methodology WG,
and Network Joint Management WG (NJM) are all scheduled to meet at
the PSC IETF. Full reports of those meetings will be included next
month.
Kent England has produced a "Border Patrol" document for TEWG to
consider in PSC. This document is intended to be a tutorial and
framework for defining and coordinating network interconnections.
The Federal Networking Council (FNC) has expressed interest in such
a similar document to be used in registering and coordinating
international connections. TEWG and the FNC Egng Planning Group
(FEPG) will work together to produce these documents.
ROUTING AREA
Director: Robert Hinden/BBN
Border Gateway Protocol Review
A review of the new draft of the Border Gateway Protocol was
completed in April. It was carried out because this protocol was
submitted to the IETF by the Interconnectivity Working Group (IWG)
for consideration as a Proposed Standard. The reviewers were
Deborah Estrin
Milo Medin
John Moy
Radia Perlman
Martha Steenstrup
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Mike StJohns
Paul Tsuchiya
I wish to thank them for their time and effort writing the reviews.
SUMMARY OF REVIEWS
BGP is a very good replacement for the Exterior Gateway Protocol
(EGP) for Inter-Autonomous System routing in the Internet and that
BGP is significant improvement over EGP. It relaxes the EGP "Core
Model" topology restrictions and allows arbitrary topologies,
reduces the size of routing updates, and introduces some policy
routing mechanisms. BGP should be standardized and deployed in the
Internet as soon as possible.
BGP provides some policy mechanisms, but it does not support full
internet policy routing. It does not provide mechanisms which
insure that routes conform to a specific policy.
BGP will support a much larger Internet than we have today, but
will probably not support an Internet an order of magnitude larger.
Other longer term solutions need to be developed to handle this
growth.
The authentication mechanisms in BGP are insufficient.
Authentication information needs to be carried in every message
(not only in the OPEN message) and more than one type of
authentication should be supported. OSPF provides a good model of
what is required. There is also an issue about running
authenticated BGP on top of an un-authenticated TCP.
The use of TCP for a transport protocol for BGP raises many issues.
TCP was certainly an excellent choice for building the first
versions of BGP and getting operational experience. It is less
clear that it is appropriate for a widespread and long term
deployment. One important issue is that old information will be
retransmitted by TCP even where there is new information which
replaces the older data. Other routing protocols (e.g. EGP, OSPF,
IS-IS, etc.) include mechanisms cause new routing data to replace
the older data. Old routing data is never retransmitted. Other
issues raised include:
Timer Interactions
Message v.s. Byte Stream Mismatch
BGP / TCP Interface Specification
Authentication
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The BGP specification needs to be improved in several ways. It
needs to have a better description of the problem being solved and
what problems are not solved. It should probably be merged with
the BGP usage document. Also, it's organization is reversed. The
protocol functions should be described before the message formats
are introduced.
RECOMMENDATION
I recommend that BGP be published as an RFC and entered in the
standards track as a Proposed Standard after the editorial changes
and clarifications are made as indicated in the reviews and that
the authentication mechanism be improved.
I believe that there are a number of significant issues raised by
BGP's use of TCP as a transport protocol. I would like to see
these issues resolved before BGP advances from a Proposed Standard
to a Draft Standard.
Interconnectivity Working Group
The Interconnectivity Working Group is working on revising the BGP
protocol document based on the review of the protocol. It will
then be submitted as a proposed standard.
OSPF
This month OSPF was successfully deployed in NASA's NSI internet
and also in the BARRNet NSF regional network. The NSI deployment
covered 10 routers and imported approximately 100 external routes.
The BARRNet deployment covered 10 routers and approximately 3000
external external routes. We hope to get performance statistics
from the NSI deployment and also from the testing that has been
going on at the University of Illinois.
Incorporation of OSPF into GATED (by Jeff Honig of Cornell) is
proceeding. He has also added an OSPF parser to the "tcpdump"
program.
IS-IS WG
The IS-IS working group met jointly with ANSI X3S3.3, April 17th
and 18th, in Tucson Arizona. We considered two main sets of
issues: (i) Possible technical changes and editorial clarifications
to the IETF (integrated) IS-IS specification, based on comments
received on the Internet Draft; (ii) Possible changes to the OSI
IS-IS specification (for possible inclusion in the U.S. ballot
comments on the ISO DP ballot).
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Based on our discussions, the editor of the IETF IS-IS
specification was charged with producing an updated draft, which he
promised to distribute to the IS-IS working group before submission
as an RFC. The main technical changes include: (i) a
generalization of the manner of dealing with IP External
Reachability Information in level 2 LSPs; (ii) Further definition
of the Authentication field; (iii) More complete definition of the
Dijkstra algorithm; and (iv) More complete definition of
encapsulation and decapsulation. A number of editorial
clarifications were also proposed.
In addition, our discussion resulted in one addition to the U.S.
ballot comments on the ISO DP ballot. If accepted, this would
allow more general treatment of external OSI reachability
information, and would allow the integrated IS-IS specification to
treat IP and OSI external reachable address information in the same
manner.
SECURITY AREA
Director: Steve Crocker/TIS
The security area has working groups in authentication, security
policy and site security policy handbook. The Authentication
Working Group covers both IP authentication and SNMP
authentication. The security area also coordinates security
matters with other IETF areas and with the IRTF Privacy and
Security Research Group.
Authentication (IP and SNMP): Jeff Schiller, Chuck Davin, Jim
Galvin, and Keith McCloghrie
The SNMP documents have been reviewed by the PSRG and informal
comments have been submitted to the authors. All three documents
will be available at the Pittsburgh meeting for review during the
SNMP Authentication Working Group Meeting.
Security Policy: Rich Pethia
The SPWG met on April 17 at NRI facilities. The meeting was
attended by 13 IETF members who focused on developing an: Internet
Security Policy Development Framework. The purpose of the
framework is to give the working group a focal point to use when
identifying policy issues and deciding policy content. The
framework contains the following major sections:
-Introduction: definitions, scope of policy, applicability,
authority, focus and emphasis.
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-Inventory of existing policies: existing policies, directives,
laws that may impact Internet security policy.
-Needed Policy: what policies are needed and how should they be
produced.
-Security Services: what specific Internet services should be
covered and what is the policy in each area.
-Certification and Accreditation: who are the "authorities",
what process is used to certify individual network components,
how is a collection of components accreditated.
-Security administration and responsibilities: how is the
security policy communicated, administered.
This framework will be presented to the SPWG working group at the
May IETF meeting and assignments to work specific areas will be
made at that time.
Site Security Policy Handbook: Joyce Reynolds and Paul Holbrook
The SSPHWG will be meeting May 2nd at the Pittsburgh IETF. The
agenda will include:
1) Discussion on current security policy and relationship
to the Security Policy Working Group (SPWG).
2) Goals and directions of the SSPHWG (strawman proposal
by J. Paul Holbrook).
3) Structure and organization of handbook.
4) Timeframe for writing and submission for publication
of the handbook.
5) Review of plans/action items for next round of meetings.
a) Next meeting in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 12th at
USC/Information Sciences Institute.
b) Next IETF meeting in August at University of British
Columbia.
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Privacy Enhanced Mail: Steve Kent and Ken Rossen
Privacy enhanced mail will be presented at the IETF meeting in
Pittsburgh. Details are being worked out for the release of the
software to the PSRG and later to the Internet community as a
whole.
Phill Gross (pgross@NRI.RESTON.VA.US)
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INTERNET PROJECTS
-----------------
BARRNET
-------
No report received.
BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN INC.
----------------------------
TERRESTRIAL WIDEBAND NETWORK AND ST/IP GATEWAY
During April, the ST Gateway and Terrestrial Wideband projects
supported three SIMNET exercises/tests, seven video conferences and
two conferencing demos.
SIMNET activity included the support of two days of SIMNET
testing/demos and the support of a week long SIMNET exercise
involving the Navy, Army and Marines. The latter demonstrated
interoperability over long-haul communications between the Navy
simulation system (BFIT) and SIMNET. At the same time, the Army
and Marines participated in separate successful tank and air
support exercises.
Five of the video conferences held included four sites, one
involved two sites, and one involved one site. Conferences were
held by the Internet Activities Board (IAB) and multiple IETF
working groups. Conferences were held that involved Mark Pullen
(DARPA), Brian Boesch (DARPA), Ira Richer (DARPA), Dave Clark
(MIT), Bob Braden (ISI), Van Jacobson (LB), and many others.
TCP/ISO TRANSLATION
Software and Demonstration of TCP-TP4 protocol translation at SHAPE
Technical Centre (STC). The transport layer protocol
implementation in Estelle is being coded by STC. Part of this has
been completed.
We have the environment for off-line testing integrated with the
code produced from the Estelle finite-state machine rules, and the
the TCP transactions associated with connection opening are being
debugged.
ICBNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Special-purpose Butterfly Gateway X.25 interface software is under
development for the provision of automatic fallback connectivity to
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European ICBNet sites in the face of single-point ICBNet backbone
node or trunk failures. This software, which will be installed in
the CNUCE and STC ICBNet nodes, will automatically open an X.25 PDN
virtual circuit between those two nodes for as long as a node or
trunk problem along the ICBNet's European backbone persists. The
virtual circuit will be automatically closed when primary backbone
connectivity is restored. Interface hardware will soon be
installed at CNUCE and STC in preparation for preliminary testing
of connectivity through the PDN.
A dialup capability will implemented at all of the Butterfly-based
ICBNet sites which will provide control of, and diagnostic access
to, ICBNet nodes by network operators when they are temporarily cut
off from access via network paths. This capability will provide
complete gateway console access; remote execution of diagnostic
programs residing on the gateway load device; remote hardware reset
and power-cycling of the Butterfly, its load device, and other
ancillary equipment; and remote download of new gateway software.
All dialup paths will be protected with (at a minimum) the security
measures required by the host site.
The joint US-UK "fat pipe" effort is on schedule, with installation
of the 512 Kbps international circuit linking "FIX-East" (located
at SURANet facilities at UMd) to ULCC (University of London
Computer Center) currently expected at the end of June. With the
installation of Butterfly Gateways at the circuit's endpoints, the
fat pipe will provide the primary connectivity to the US for most
of the European ICBNet sites.
Bob Hinden (Hinden@bbn.com)
CERFNET
-------
This year is quickly becoming a progressive year for CERFnet.
During March, CERFnet prepared a proposal to the National Science
Foundation that seeks to expand the network. In early April,
CERFnet introduced its new dialup service, DIAL n' CERF. Two new
industrial members were brought online and another installation is
planned for May. These new memberships bring the total membership
to 50 institutions since CERFnet installed the CERFnet backbone one
year ago.
Phase II proposes CERFnet expansion
CERFnet submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation in
March. This proposal, CERFnet-Phase II, provides for 23 new
connections to CERFnet. The institutions participating in this
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Internet Monthly Report April 1990
proposal are three four-year colleges, two community colleges and
fifteen K-12 schools and one Department of Education. Also, the
proposal asks for additional funding to upgrade existing
connections to support growth.
Anniversary
It was one year ago this May and June that the CERFnet backbone was
installed. Since then traffic on the network has grown
tremendously. During the next few months the CERFnet staff will be
evaluating the performance of CERFnet.
Keun Hee Han, a researcher and scientist from the Korean Advanced
Institute ofScience and Technology, will be one of the staff
working on this project. Mr. Han will be with CERFnet for the
next 6 months. He is involved with the development of a national
research and education network in Korea. While with CERFnet, Mr.
Han hopes to learn about the administrative and technical efforts
involved in running a wide area network.
Dialup service now available
DIAL n' CERF, the new dialup SLIP service offered by CERFnet, was
made available to users on April 9. The new dialup service allows
users to connect to CERFnet via a personal computer or terminal,
and a modem. The service will be available on a trial basis at
first. One terminal server has been installed at SDSC. Eventually,
the service will be expanded and terminal servers will be installed
at the other four backbone sites: UCLA, Caltech, UCI, and the UC
Office of the President.
New members
Walt Disney Imagineering located in Glendale, California was
brought online April 6. A 56 kbps link to the California Institute
of Technology will be installed. Walt Disney is involved in
research and development, particularly in collaborative projects
with academic institutions. Also, Science Horizons of Encinitas,
California was brought online in February. Science Horizons has a
56 kbps link to SDSC.
CERFnet NIC and mailing list
If you had problems printing the CERFnet User's Guide from the
CERFnet NIC, or any other postscript document, please try again. We
have resolved the problems and apologize for any inconvenience. You
can reach the CERFnet NIC via anonymous ftp to NIC.CERF.NET.
Westine [Page 17]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
CERFnet has also changed its mailing lists from the @sds.sdsc.edu
address to info@cerf.net (general information), ops@cerf.net
(operations information), and help@cerf.net (for assistance or
questions).
The April-May 1990 issue of CERFnet News was produced. Copies can
be retrieved in postscript and text format via the CERFnet NIC in
the subdirectory cerfnet_news.
by Karen Armstrong (armstrongk@sds.sdsc.edu)
CICNET
-------
No report received.
CORNELL
-------
No report received.
ISI
---
INTERNET CONCEPTS PROJECT
The linear congruential random number package has been extracted
from the UNIX C library random package and installed in the
psuedo-gateway's kernel. This allows testing of the IP/SQ
algorithm's performance where gateways use random drop and Source
Quench generation when their queues overflow due to congestion.
Simulation had previously suggested that this would add a measure
of fairness to the IP/SQ algorithm when several like sources are
simultaneously competing for a restricted bandwidth. Early tests
indicate that this is indeed the case. Greg Finn continues to
gather data for inclusion into a paper which is in an early draft
stage.
Bob Braden organized three teleconferences during April. On April
13, a group concerned with planning and using the open gateway
testbed ("DRI") met. Topics included the schedule for hardware
installation, the development of the necessary gateway and
experimental software, and possible ways to facilitate
collaboration among groups. On April 26, the IAB met, and on April
27, the End-to-End Research Group met, using the teleconferencing
facility.
Westine [Page 18]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
Jon Postel attended the ANSIx3S3 meeting on Internet Protocols,
18-20 April. Jon Postel visited Sun Computers in Palo Alto to
discuss network interfaces and system engineering, 12 April. Paul
Mockapatris consulted with Mark Pullen at DARPA, 1-6 April, and
again on 22-27 April. Paul Mockapetris, Joyce Reynolds, and Steve
Casner attended the IETF meeting in Pittsburg, PA, April 30 - May
3. Ann Westine represented Los Nettos at a Networking Symposium at
Fullerton College May 3-4.
Six RFCs were published this month.
RFC 1147: Stine, R., "FYI on a Network Management Tool
Catalog: Tools for Monitoring and Debugging
TCP/IP Internets and Interconnected Devices",
Sparta, Inc., April 1990.
RFC 1149: Waitzman, D., "A Standard for the Transmission of
IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", BBN STC, April 1990.
RFC 1151: Partridge, C., (BBN), and R. Hinden (BBN), "Version 2
of the Reliable Data Protocol (RDP), April 1990.
RFC 1152: Partridge, C., "Workshop Report Internet Research
Steering Group Workshop on Very-High-Speed Networks",
BBN, April 1990.
RFC 1153: Wancho, F., "Digest Message Format", WSMR, April 1990.
RFC 1154: Robinson, D., and R. Ullman, "Encoding Header Field
for Internet Messages", Prime Computer, Inc.,
April 1990.
One ISI Research Report was published.
ISI/RR-90-254: Westine, A., A. DeSchon, J. Postel, and C. Ward,
"Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services,
USC/ISI, April 1990.
Ann Westine (Westine@ISI.EDU)
MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCING PROJECT
Many multisite teleconferences were held this month. An all-day
telemeeting of the IAB was the first to use the new conference room
setup on the 1st floor at DARPA.
PictureTel video codecs have been purchased for installation at the
four existing teleconference sites plus University College London
Westine [Page 19]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
and one or two additional sites in the US. These codecs will give
better video quality, but can only show one site at a time. We
expect to continue parallel operation of the existing Concept
codecs for multi-site, multi-quadrant teleconferences. In a visit
to PictureTel headquarters, we proposed collaborative development
of a multi-quadrant capability in the PictureTel codec. The idea
was well received; discussion will continue.
To accommodate sites configured for multiple codecs or multiple
workstations sharing the same codec, codec control functionality
was removed from the Multimedia Conference Control program, MMCC,
and placed in a separate RPC-based server. An initial pass at an
RPC-based audio/video crossbar switch server was completed as well.
As another move toward more personalized conferencing, we began
porting the Voice Terminal (VT) program, which runs on a BBN
Butterfly as part of the current multimedia conferencing system, to
run on a Sun Sparcstation.
Two NEC echo cancellers were also purchased, and will be installed
at ISI and at DARPA. They will eliminate the need for headphones
at those two sites, and will also allow people who can't get to one
of the teleconference sites to participate by telephone in the
audio portion of a teleconference.
Terry Crowley of BBN provided a new version of MMConf, which we
tested in a phone + shared workspace mode with Hans-Werner Braun at
Merit and Scott Brim at Cornell. After some additional refinement,
this new version will be installed for use during video
teleconferences, and we will encourage widespread use for
teleconferences by video, phone, or a combination.
A new version of the Packet Video Host, PVP, is also in testing.
It allows one to dynamically vary the parameters of a new packet-
reordering algorithm (which corrects for lost, out-of-order and
late ST packets) and to change codecs and codec data rates on the
fly. Using the newly larger ST packet data areas, PVP will also
allow a dynamic change, between one and "n", in the number of ST
packets needed to carry the data for a single video frame. A new
version of the BFTP package, BFTP.311.tar.Z, is available for
anonymous FTP from the "pub/" directory on venera.isi.edu. It
includes command parsing code from UC Berkeley and time parsing
code from IBM/CMU which may be freely distributed.
Dave Walden, Eve Schooler, Steve Casner, Annette DeSchon
(djwalden@ISI.EDU, schooler@ISI.EDU, casner@ISI.EDU,
deschon@ISI.EDU)
Westine [Page 20]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
FAST PARTS
Paul Postel implemented a fully automated procedure for a subset of
FAST's rfq/quote handling. Request for quote information is
automatically extracted from FAST's Oracle database into a mail
message that is sent via the Internet's Reston mail bridge to
FAST's vendors with MCI mail accounts. The quote responses from
the vendors are returned via the same path and automatically parsed
and inserted into the database.
Anna-Lena Neches (ALNeches@ISI.EDU)
JVNCNET, NORTH EAST RESEARCH REGIONAL NETWORK
---------------------------------------------
Princeton University will assume responsibility for management of
the JvNCnet Regional Network effective this summer. Ira Fuchs,
Vice President for Computing at Princeton University, will assume
overall management responsibility. The entire JvNCnet staff, under
the direction of Sergio Heker, will be relocated to Princeton
University as a separate organization reporting to Lee Varian,
Director for Systems and Technical Support. The JvNCnet will be
managed as a self-sufficient, non-profit organization on behalf of
its academic, industrial and government members.
A board of Overseers will be established to review the JvNCnet
annual program plan and budget, advise JvNCnet management on the
operation of the network and assist in obtaining new contracts and
grants.
The overall plan has been approved by the Consortium for Scientific
Computing and the National Science Foundation. A detailed plan has
been developed for relocation of the staff and equipment to
Princeton University and it is now under way. We do not anticipate
any difficulties with the transition, and expect that the
relocation will be transparent to our users.
The traffic on the network on the month of March has increased to
2.09 Billon packets (into and out of the JvNCnet). Of this, 0.88
Billon was directed to or received from the NSFNET. The
availability of the network for March was 99.68%. The New Haven
backbone node is being being installed this week connecting with T1
lines Providence and New York and the end nodes of Yale University
and Wesleyan University.
Westine [Page 21]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
For more information contact:
Network Operations: "noc@nisc.jvnc.net"
Network Information Services: "nisc@nisc.jvnc.net"
JvNCnet Regional Network Topology (As of 05/09/90)
------------(8) Boston
/ /
/ (7) Providence
/ /
/ (6) New Haven
/ /
/ /
/ (5) New York
| /
| /
| (4) Newark
| /
| /
| (3) Trenton
| / \
| / (2) JvNC
| /
--(1) Philadelphia
Westine [Page 22]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
Backbone Node Institutions
============= ============
1 Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania
Penn State University
Rohm & Haas (scheduled)
2 JvNC Princeton University
Institute for Advanced Study
R.E. Squibb & Sons
Siemens Research
NORDUnet
JANET
RISQ
NEC
GFDL
3 Trenton
4 Newark Rutgers University
Stevens Institute of Technology
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ
Montclair State College
Kean College
AT&T Bell Labs
Bell Communications Research
IEEE (scheduled)
5 New York New York University
6 New Haven Yale University
Wesleyan University
7 Providence Brown University
American Mathematics Society
University of Rhode Island
8 Boston NEARnet
Dartmouth College
by Sergio Heker (heker@nisc.jvnc.net)
LOS NETTOS
----------
The DOE ESNet was installed through the Los Angeles area with nodes
at Caltech and UCLA. An agreement was reached for methods of
exchanging routes with Los Nettos and CERFnet at Caltech. This was
implemented on 20 April90. Discussion of appropriate routing
information exchange methods at UCLA is continuing.
Los Nettos service to the IBM Scientific Center in Santa Monica
discontinued as of the beginning of April. This IBM group is
relocating out of the area. A new circuit was installed to
maintain the robust topology IBM's leaving disrupted. IBMs
Westine [Page 23]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
departure is a loss to Los Nettos.
Service to TRW was disrupted for about 8 hours on 25-April-90 due
to backhoe fading.
A data pattern sensitivity problem was detected on the ISI-UCLA
circuit on 3-April-90. The carrier (GTE) has provided a work
around but has not resolved the problem. It is curious because the
pattern of all zeros or all ones does not cause the problem. It is
not therefore simply a ones density problem.
Equipment for providing remote console access to member ciscos and
CSU/DSUs was ordered.
Walt Prue (Prue@ISI.EDU)
MERIT/UMNET
-----------
March 1990
At a Merit board of directors strategic planning retreat in early
March, the board set several mandates aimed at improving
connectivity throughout the state, bringing the remaining 5
Michigan supported universities onboard as members of the Merit
consortium, and to extend Merit's services to a more comprehensive
group of universities, K-12 school systems, community colleges, and
commercial organizations doing research.
The Board also directed that the staff continue planning and design
for the upgrade of the statewide network backbone. A task force has
begun work on an RFI to be issued to commercial router vendors; in
parallel, a meeting of network staff from all of the Merit
consortium members convened to begin discussing the routing issues
involved in the backbone migration as well as the Merit members'
complicated Internet connectivity.
Merit's SprintMail-to-Internet gateway service came online for
testing late in March. The gateway, which is using x.400-to-SMTP
gatewaying software, is running on a SUN SPARCstation provided by
SprintNet for this purpose.
The Merit Network News, Merit's newsletter, is now printed on
recycled stock, at a net savings of approximately 10%.
by Pat McGregor (patmcg@merit.edu)
Westine [Page 24]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
April 1990
Merit has recently added a 9600/19200 dialin service in Ann Arbor,
and expects to add it in Washington, DC, in the near future.
Since 9600 bps dialin is a prevalent access speed across the nation
with Sprintnet's deployment of 9600 bps modems in many major cities
and Merit's recent installation of modems at this speed, we are
beginning a major revision in our listings of access phone numbers
and other related documentation.
Our new "Telnet at Which Host?" service has become immensely
popular. This is a telnet server from the main entry point of the
network, which allows users without TCP/IP software to use the
network to support a telnet session. The service's popularity (and
the subsequent increased IP traffic load on the system) has helped
us discover and fix some hidden problems with our routing and
storage programs. Additionally, user questions and needs have
helped us clarify our policies regarding appropriate use of the
system.
The Merit statewide network backbone redesign team has been meeting
regularly and making good progress. The Merit staff are refining
the architectural requirements for the Michigan statewide network
in preparation for selecting a router vendor. It is expected that
this process will be completed by sometime in June. The issues
surrounding address space and multiple entries to the Internet (via
CICNet, NSFNET, and Merit itself) are being worked out jointly with
the technical representatives for the eight Merit member
universities.
Merit's SprintMail-to-Internet gateway service came online for
production use early in April, although it has not yet been
formally released. After some initial unsteadiness, the gateway
seems to be working well.
by Pat McGregor (patmcg@merit.edu)
MIDNET
------
No report received.
MIT-LCS
-------
No report received.
Westine [Page 25]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
MITRE Corporation
-----------------
No report received.
MRNET
-----
The MRNet Executive Committee completed and unanimously approved
the document "MRNet: A Vision for Phase II."
This document articulates the MRNet Executive Committee's vision
for the future of MRNet. Conclusions include:
o MRNet's mission must be expanded to better provide research
and education network services which strenghten the academic
and industrial infrastructure of Minnesota and the region.
o MRNet must offer a broader range of services, from the
unsupported Internet connectivity offered today, to
fully supported Internet connections. Other, related network
services should also be offered.
o MRNet requires a strengthened organization in order to
pursue the expanded mission and offer the enhanced services.
A corporation owned by MRNet's stakeholders is the most
appropriate structure, (as was first proposed in MRNet's 1987
Bylaws).
The Executive Committee is undertaking two tasks to refine and
implement MRNet Phase II:
o The MRNet Advisiory Committee is being formed to guide the
transition to the next phase of MRNet.
o The Executive is seeking funds to:
- Write the business plan for MRNet Phase II.
- Publish a quarterly MRNet newsletter, and
- Host a conference for the many groups involved with
research and education networking in the region.
Westine [Page 26]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
This document will be distributed shortly. Contact any member of
the MRNet Executive Committee for additional information.
Carl F. Henry MRNet Treasurer chenry@carleton.edu
Timothy J. Salo MRNet Secretary tjs@msc.umn.edu
Jeff A. Wabik MRNet Vice Chair jwabik@msc.umn.edu
by Timothy J. Salo (tjs@msc.umn.edu>)
NCAR/USAN
---------
No report received.
NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK
-----------------------------------------
During April, Aware, Inc. was connected to the network. Operation
of the network continued to be stable. The connection to Colby
College, which splits 56Kb/s off of a T-1 circuit for data, has had
to be redesigned due to numerous operational problems with the
equipment.
by John Rugo (jrugo@nic.near.net)
NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC.
----------------------------------------
The NNSC began distribution of the NSF Network News, Issue No. 7.
The NNSC continues to distribute several copies of the NSFNET
posters to interested current users as well as prospective users of
the network.
The NNSC distributed additions to Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5 and M of the
Internet Resource Guide. The NNSC had begun editing entries for
Chapter 4, White Pages. Distribution of this newest chapter will
begin shortly.
The NNSC has received over 2,000 anonymous ftp requests for the
month of April. The electronic mail distribution list for updates
to the guide is estimated as close to 800 mail addresses and local
mail exploders.
Westine [Page 27]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
Requests to be added to, or removed from the distribution list for
the Internet Resource Guide should go to resource-guide-
request@nnsc.nsf.net. The guide is also available via anonymous
ftp at nnsc.nsf.net, cd resource-guide.
by Corinne Carroll (ccarroll@nnsc.nsf.net)
NSFNET BACKBONE (MERIT)
The inbound traffic on the NSFNET Backbone was 3,075,017,813
packets for April, an increase of 8.23% over March. As of 30 April
1990, 1525 nets are configured on the NSFNET Backbone.
The NSS locations at Ithaca, College Park and Princeton will be
changed in the upcoming weeks. Staff at the individual sites and
Merit will be working to minimize the disruption to the backbone
network as a whole.
Preparations for CA*net connections continue. The first operational
link between CA*net and the NSFNET is anticipated for the end of
May.
Guests at the Merit/NSFNET Network Operations Center included
Michael Ekedahl from the University of Nevada, CA*net technical
staff, telecommunications experts from Northern Telecom of Ottawa,
Canada, and visitors from the Swedish PTT. Paul Christ of the
University of Stuttgart Regional Computer Center Institute for Data
Transmission spoke with Merit/NSFNET staff about high speed
networking activities in Germany.
Hans-Werner Braun attended the IAB video conference from the
Washington node and also attended a FEPG meeting. The NSFNET
Backbone project was represented in a display at the Science Day
reception, part of National Science and Technology Week, sponsored
by Coretech (the Council on Research and Technology) in Washington,
D.C. Susan Calcari and Ken Horning discussed national and
international networking with guests attending the reception,
including legislators and legislative staffers.
by Jo Ann Ward (jward@merit.edu)
Westine [Page 28]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
NORTHWESTNET
------------
The NWNet Technical Committee met on April 6. Most of the
discussion centered around router upgrades and configuration
issues. It was decided that NWNet will begin to purchase cisco
routers where there were clear economic or technical incentives to
do so. In the past, prospective clients were required to purchase
a Proteon router to serially connect to existing NWNet sites. In
the absence of vendor implementations of the Point to Point
Protocol, NWNet will entertain proposals from strategic hub sites
requesting the placement of a cisco on a shared Ethernet with the
existing Proteon. The first site to do so was the Oregon Graduate
Institute in Beaverton, Oregon. OGI had requests from 3
prospective clients to join NWNet, given that they could use one of
their ciscos to facilitate that connection. The Technical
Committee granted OGI's request.
In addition, the Technical Committee recommended that the existing
Proteons be upgraded to v8.2 of the operating system, that 68020
based CPUs be installed, and that each router be retrofitted with
an Integrated Boot Device to decrease the reliance upon a TFTP
server at boot time.
Finally, the Technical Committee recommended that the Configuration
sub-committee reconvene with the following topics among those to be
discussed:
o Reconfiguration of existing circuits (Battelle, Boeing, OGI)
o Redundancy planning, both inter and intra regional
o Evolution of the NWNet IGP from RIP to OSPF or IS-IS
o Collaboration with the Oregon State System of Higher Education
Network (OSSHEnet) activities
o CA*Net connection from Vancouver to Seattle
o Possible Pacific Rim connections via new trans-Pacific fiber
New members
The Pacific Marine Environmental Labs of the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration (PMEL/NOAA) located in Seattle,
joined NWNet via a 56kbps link to the Univerisity of Washington.
by Dan Jordt (danj@cac.washington.edu)
Westine [Page 29]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
NSF BACKBONE (Merit)
-------------------
No report received.
NTA-RE and NDRE
---------------
No report received.
NYSERNET
--------
No report received.
OARNET
------
No report received.
PENNSYLVANIA RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP NETWORK (PREPnet)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Two additional corporate sites have signed on as members of PREPnet
during the month. Softswitch Inc., a company involved in the
design of application layer gateways, has contracted for a 56 Kbps
connection to the Philadelphia hub and Maya Design Group, a
Pittsburgh-based software development company, has agreed to a 56
Kbps connection to the Pittsburgh hub. Installation is still
pending on these new sites.
A PREPnet data sensitivity problem was encountered and resolved
during the month. The problem surfaced when Penn State University
(PSU) network operators observed difficulty in passing packets
containing four or more consecutive bytes of hex '00'. File
transfer rates were dropping by almost half for these packets.
Local testing was first performed to generate the required packets
and confirm the existence of the problem. Bell Telephone
technicians then sectionalized the trouble between the Pittsburgh
hub and the Penn State campus. SNMP errors on a COM-2 interface
board indicated a possible problem with the T1 carrier subnetwork.
The interface on the COM-2 board was switched in an attempt to
further sectionalize the trouble, however, this change did not
eliminate the incidence of data errors. The T1 span was then
patched off between the State College, PA (PSU) Bell central office
and the Pittsburgh hub's central office. This patch should have
allowed PREPnet traffic to use the patched span, however, the
transmission line did not come back up. As it turned out, when the
Westine [Page 30]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
patch was taken down the line still did not come up, and the
problem was found to be a coincidental problem with the level
converter on the PSU router. The span was patched off again in an
attempt to further sectionalize the trouble. Eventually, a
marginal low-speed transmit board in a fiber-optic multiplexor at
the State College Bell central office was detected. This board was
replaced and test data containing hex 00's was then transferred
without the previous significant degradation in transmission rates.
This problem has been documented as being unique to a T1 carrier
transmission line.
Tom Cummings (tc1r@andrew.cmu.edu)
PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER
-------------------------------
No report received.
RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeans)
---------------------------
No report received.
SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER
------------------------------
No report received.
SESQUINET
---------
No report received.
SRI
----
DDN NIC
The root domain server on NIC.DDN.MIL is in the process of being
moved to NS.NIC.DDN.MIL (192.67.67.53). Servers are currently
being run in parallel on NIC.DDN.MIL and NS.NIC.DDN.MIL. The
server on NIC.DDN.MIL will be turned off on 1 June.
Vivian Neou <vivian@NISC.SRI.COM>
In April, 198 new numbers have been assigned to government-
sponsored IP networks. In addition, this month we assigned 88
numbers to independent IP networks. The total number of all
Westine [Page 31]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
assigned IP numbers is now 4,529 which includes 2,604 sponsored
networks and 1,925 independent networks. The total number of
assigned Autonomous System numbers (ASNs) is now 673.
There are currently a total of 1,555 registered domains which
includes 47 at the top level, 1,460 at the second level, and 48
third-level MIL domains.
Douglas MacGowan <MACGOWAN@NIC.DDN.MIL>
SURANET
-------
No report received.
TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION NETWORK
------------------------------
No report received.
UCL
----
Nothing to report this month.
John Crowcroft (j.crowcroft@CS.UCL.AC.UK)
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
----------------------
1. Erik Perkins, Mike Davis and Ken Monington finished testing
and evaluating experimental VLSI crossbar chips for our
gigabit project. In spite of careful simulation and analysis
with Magic and Spice before silicon etch, an obscure logic bug
appears to prevent full functionality. Plans are in the works
to fix the bug and etch again. We are gaining some
appreciation for the sinister nuances of silicon engineering.
2. Ken Monington is working on statistical methods for time
transfer and network synchronization. Erik Perkins is working
on congestion control and avoidance and is to spend the Summer
at Xerox PARC. Both presented present status and future plans
at department seminars. Dave Mills attended a DARTNET
teleconference and an End- to-End teleconference, both at
DARPA.
Westine [Page 32]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
3. Stefan Levie produced a report on a port of Dennis Ferguson's
NTP daemon to the MS-DOS/KA9Q environment. Mark Shaw completed
a precision timer board for the IBM AT and is watching the
Northeast LORAN-C chain with it. We expect to provide rainfall
data and New York subway monitoring with it.
4. Dave Mills reported on LORAN-C and Global Positioning System
time transfer experience to a meeting of the U.S. Coast Guard.
At issue was the automation of LORAN-C inter-chain
synchronization with U.S. Naval Observatory. Also at issue
was the intentional degradation of the GPS Block-II satellite
system accuracy to the point where they are not useful for
precision time transfer. Happily, we have been granted an
extension on the loan of our cesium clock and LORAN-C
receiver.
5. Further work on the NTP specification and implementation
continues. The specification has been coded in Estelle, which
revealed a bushel of prose waffles and a minor functionality
bug or two. This has resulted in a major overhaul of the
specification to improve clarity, resolve ambiguities and
control error budgets, as well as extend functionality to the
nanosecond/gigabit regime for future projects. Interestingly,
the Estelle version is about the same size as the English
version. However, the Estelle version is apparently too large
for the existing simulation tools and breaks the compiler
compiler compiler (sic).
6. There are now two fuzzball time servers in Norway, one
connected to a cesium clock and the other to a LORAN-C
receiver, although not all the bugs are worked out for the
latter. The transatlantic path is still quite noisy and
occasionally jiggles the seconds in Norway; however,
modifications to the synchronization algorithms are being made
to fix that. The JvNC fuzzball time servers is to be
relocated, but a suitable resting spot has not yet been
declared.
Dave Mills (Mills@UDEL.EDU)
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN/NCSANET
--------------------------------------------------
No report received.
Westine [Page 33]
Internet Monthly Report April 1990
WESTNET
--------
No report received.
WISCNET
--------
Work on RFBs (Request for Bids) for DDS and T1 DSUs, T1
multiplexors, and communication services was completed and the RFBs
were issued to vendors. Responses are due in May. Analysis of RFB
responses are expected to be completed in May or early June. An
additional RFB for IBM mainframe TCP/IP hardware and software is
under development.
The Board of Directors will meet on May 2 in conjunction with a UW
System Computing Center Directors meeting at UW-Eau Claire to
discuss membership policies, a proposal to implement a early test
site, appropriate use policies, and recent developments such as the
RFBs and the status of the NSF proposal (no official confirmation
has been recived as of 26 April).
Michael Dorl (dorl@macc.wisc.edu)
Westine [Page 34]