<NIS.NSF.NET> [IMR] IMR91-01.TXT
JANUARY 1991
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 Internet information purposes only, and is not
to be quoted in other publications without permission from the
submitter.
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 3
AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3
END-TO-END SERVICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3
INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3
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Internet Projects
BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 11
CSUNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 12
FARNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13
ISI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 14
JVNCNET, NORTH EAST RESEARCH REGIONAL NETWORK . . . . . . page 15
LOS NETTOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18
MERIT/MICHNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18
MIT-LCS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18
MITRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 19
NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . page 20
NSFNET BACKBONE, MERIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 20
NTA-RD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 22
PREPnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 22
SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 22
SESQUINET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 23
SRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 23
UCL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 24
UDEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 25
WISCNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 26
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IAB MESSAGE
No Internet progress to report this month.
Bob Braden (Braden@ISI.EDU)
INTERNET RESEARCH REPORTS
-------------------------
AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS
-------------------
No activities to report this month.
Deborah Estrin (Estrin@USC.EDU)
END-TO-END SERVICES
-------------------
No Internet progress to report this month.
Bob Braden (Braden@ISI.EDU)
INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS
----------------------------
IETF Report for January 1991
Contents:
1. IETF Meeting (March 11-15 in St. Louis)
2. Area Reports
3. New IETF Working Groups and Documents for January 1991
4. "At-A-Glance" Logistics Information for the
St. Louis Meeting
5. Registration form for St. Louis IETF meeting
1. IETF Meeting (March 11-15 in St. Louis)
The IETF will hold its next meeting in St. Louis (March 11-15,
1991). "At-A-Glance" logistics information is included below. For
more information, please contact Megan Davies
(mdavies@nri.reston.va.us).
I want to take this opportunity to remind prospective attendees of
one change in our normal planning for this (and future) meetings --
we will be asking for an attendance fee to help offset some costs
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
of the meeting.
The IETF is an open technical meeting, not a "conference". Local
expenses for all past IETF meetings have been been paid for either
by the local host or through U.S. government funding. When the
IETF meetings were smaller this was workable, but as the meetings
grew in size, the U.S. government expressed a desire for IETF
participants to share a portion of the meeting costs. Therefore,
beginning with this IETF meeting, we are asking attendees to defray
some IETF meeting costs directly. It is our sincere hope that this
new policy does not affect attendance at IETF meetings. Please
contact Phill GrosS or Megan Davies (703-620-8990,
mdavies@nri.reston.va.us), if you encounter any difficulties.
Regular IETF attendees will recall that we have discussed this
issue as early as the February 1990 open plenary at FSU. At the
December 1990 meeting in Boulder, we announced that this new policy
would start with the St. Louis meeting.
Further details will be provided in announcements to the IETF
mailing list (send to ietf-request@isi.edu to join). However,
there are a few more important issues to mention here.
- IMPORTANCE OF EARLY HOTEL AND IETF REGISTRATION: It will be
important for folks to send their reistration forms and checks to
CNRI (and to make their room reservations with the hotel) by
February 22nd. There are 3 reasons for this. 1) The hotel offers
discounted rates for both the hotel rooms and the meeting rooms,
but it is based on filling an early hotel "block". The "block"
closes on Feb 22nd. Therefore, you can help reduce your costs and
the overall meeting costs if you make your hotel room reservation
and your attendance reservation by Feb 22nd. It turns out the IETF
has not had a good record in the past of filling early hotel
"blocks". It will help to keep costs down if we can establish a
better record of early hotel registrations. 2) It is very helpful
for the logistics planning (eg, refreshments, setting up meeting
rooms in "classroom" or "theatre" style, etc) if we have a good
idea of the number of attendees in advance. 3) It will help reduce
the onsite registration hassles and delays if most of the stuff is
taken care of for most attendees before the meeting. Since this is
the first meeting in which fees will be required, we have no
experience with how this might increase onsite registration delays.
Note: Make your hotel room reservation directly with the hotel.
Make your attendance reservation by returning the registration
form to CNRI.
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
All these requirements will be satisfied if prospective attendees
have booked the hotel room by the Feb 22nd cutoff date, and if they
have returned a completed registration form to CNRI by the Feb 22nd
cutoff date. Therefore, under these conditions, we will be happy
to accept the regular attendance fee onsite.
- REFUND POLICY: We will give a full refund for cancellations or
no-shows. Those who cancel or no-show would not receive
Proceedings, of course, but can arrange to purchase separately if
they wish.
- CREDIT CARDS: We do not yet have the final arrangements in place
to accept credit cards. Therefore, for this first meeting, I must
ask that attendees arrange for payment by check. We fully expect
to be able to accept credit cards by the July IETF meeting in
Atlanta.
The IETF has come a long way since our initial 15 person meeting
five years ago. Its growth and successes have come from the
support of a wide community of network operators, users, vendors,
and researchers. This special blend of attendees makes the IETF a
unique development group. I intend to make every effort to
maintain that important and distinctive blend of contributors.
2. Area Reports
--- User Services Area Report (January 1991) - Joyce K. Reynolds
New Working Group Announcements -
Internet User Glossary Working Group (userglos) Chaired by Karen
Roubicek and Tracy LaQuey Parker
A new working group was announced this month via the IETF
mailing list. The User-Gloss Working Group is chartered to
create an Internet glossary of networking terms and acronyms for
the Internet community. We are also pleased to announce that
Tracy LaQuey Parker will be joining Karen Roubicek as co-chair
of this working group. This group will meet at the IETF in St.
Louis.
NOC-Tool Catalogue Revisions Working Group (noctool2) Chaired by
Robert Enger and Gary Malkin
The start up of the this working group was announced at the IETF
in Boulder. A new charter is in place, and the "Son of
NOCTools" was announced this month via the IETF mailing list.
Unfortunately, Bob Stine has announced he would be unable to
Westine [Page 5]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
carry on with the NOCTools project as he previously intended.
On behalf of the IETF, we thank Bob for his time, dedication,
and efforts on the NOCTools catalogue. We are pleased to
announce Bob Enger will continue as chair of NOCTools, with Gary
Malkin joining Bob as co-chair in this effort. The first
meeting of this group will be at the IETF in St. Louis.
Working Group Reports -
NISI - Chaired by Dana Sitzler
The "Building a Network Information Services Infrastructure"
draft document was expanded to more accurately define and
describe a NIC, with the ultimate goal intended to make it
easier for users to get information from NICs.
SSPHWG - Chaired by J. Paul Holbrook and Joyce K. Reynolds
The draft document is in the hands of the SSPHWG editors and is
undergoing rework per the corrections/suggestions provided at
the SSPHWG session in Boulder.
USWG - Chaired by Joyce K. Reynolds
The Quail documents, "FYI on Questions and Answers - Answers to
Commonly asked "New Internet User" Questions", and "FYI on
Questions and Answers - Answers to Commonly asked "Experienced
Internet User" Questions", are continuing to undergo rework per
the corrections/suggestions provided at the USWG session in
Boulder. Additional writing is continuing on the installation
checklist, based on input from IETF members at Boulder.
--- Applications Area (January 1991) - Russ Hobby
The Resource Location Working Group now has a chair, John Veizades
(Apple). John is writing the WG charter and is getting the group
into operation. Two new Working Groups, SMTP and Network
Calendaring (Chronos), have started have been seen a lot of
activity.
The SMTP WG, chaired by Greg Vaudreuil (CNRI), has had extensive
discussion on what direction to take in improving SMTP and RFC 822
formatting. There needs to be a balance between simple goals that
can be done quickly and goals that will meet all needs for the near
future. Another concern is convergence with X.400.
The Distributed Scheduling WG, chaired by Paul Lindner (UMN) has
made a lot of progress in defining the Chronos Protocol used for
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
remote calendar scheduling. Paul has had several revisions of the
document based on the discussion on the mail list.
Another area of interest is standard formatting of text, images,
and audio to be used in documents and general information exchange.
This is critical for multimedia in email and other applications. A
working groups has been started in the OSI Area to look at Office
Document Architecture (ODA) on the Internet. Will ODA meet all the
needs for multimedia applications?
3. New Working Groups and Documents for January 1991
New Working Groups
Distributed Scheduling Protocol (chronos)
Internet Draft Activity (o = Revised draft, + = New Draft)
o <draft-ucl-kille-presentationaddress>
o <draft-ucl-kille-networkaddresses>
o <draft-ietf-ospf-ospf2>
o <draft-ietf-snmp-ethernetmib>
o <draft-ietf-osix500-directories>
o <draft-ietf-osids-cosinex500>
o <draft-ietf-osids-replsoln>
o <draft-ietf-charmib-rs232like>
o <draft-ietf-charmib-parallelprinter>
o <draft-ietf-charmib-charmib>
o <draft-ietf-osids-friendlynaming>
o <draft-ietf-osids-replication>
+ <draft-ietf-bgp-bgp3>
+ <draft-provan-ipxtunneling>
4. "At-A-Glance" Logistics Information for the St. Louis Meeting
20TH INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE Mailing Date : 2/07/91
AT-A-GLANCE Mailing Number: 2
DATE: March 11-15, 1991
HOST(S): Gurudatta Parulkar
Washington University - St. Louis
HOTEL/MEETING SITE: Clayton Plaza Holiday Inn
7730 Bonhomme Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63105
(314) 863-0400 {fax:(314) 863-8513}
150 Rooms reserved until February 22, 1991
$60.50/single or double
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
Specify: IETF GROUP
ALTERNATE ACCOM: Radisson Hotel Clayton
7750 Carondelet Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63105
(314) 726-5400 {fax:(314) 726-6105}
15 Rooms reserved until March 10, 1991
$69.00/single or double
Specify: IETF Group
1/2 block from Clayton Plaza
MESSAGES: Taken by the Hotel Operator between 8am-5pm
314-863-0400 Reference: "IETF"
PRE-REGISTRATION: Sunday, March 10, 1991
6pm - 8pm (reception during)
Clayton Plaza Holiday Inn
Room: Grand Salon
REGISTRATION: Monday, March 11, 1991
8am - 9am
Clayton Plaza Holiday Inn
Room: Gallery Foyer
ATTENDANCE FEE: PAYMENT BY CHECK ONLY: (see Registration Form)
$130.00 if received BY February 22nd
$190.00 if received AFTER February 22nd
AIRLINE: Trans World Airlines (special rate roundtrip only)
(800) 325-4933 (US/Hawaii reservations)
Specify: IETF GROUP #CV10963
We regret that discounted fares are not available
for international flights.
CAR RENTAL: Budget Rent-a-Car Discounts available through TWA
AIRPORT: Lambert St. Louis International
SHUTTLE: Both the Clayton Plaza and the Radisson provide
complimentary shuttle service to and from the
St. Louis International Airport. Both shuttles
pick up near the baggage claim area (street level).
Call the Clayton Plaza at (314) 863-0400. The Radisson
has a courtesy phone near the door tram. ~ 15
minutes from Hotels to Airport.
PARKING: Ample FREE parking at Hotel
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
CLIMATE: Moderate temperatures between 50-60 degrees.
"finger weather-stl@stormy.atmos.washington.edu"
5. Registration form for St. Louis IETF meeting
REGISTRATION FORM Mailing Date : 2/07/91
Mailing Number: 2
20th Internet Engineering Task Force
March 11-15, 1991
St. Louis, MO
_______ Yes, I plan to attend the IETF Meeting in St. Louis.
(Registration includes a copy of the Proceedings of
the Meeting)
Name(Mr/Dr/Ms):_______________________________________________
Title: _______________________________________________
Organization: _______________________________________________
Address: _______________________________________________
City: _______________________________________________
State: _______________________ Zip Code: __________
Phone: _______________________________________________
Fax: _______________________________________________
E-Mail: _______________________________________________
Please let us know who you are. Check one entry per category.
Organization ___HW/SW Vendor, ___Government, ___Network Provider,
Type: ___University, ___Other (_______________)
Your interest ___Network Operator, ___Network User,
in IETF: ___Product Developer, ___Researcher, ___Other (______)
Attendance Fee: CHECK ONLY ---- Sorry, facilities for using credit
cards not yet available! (We fully expect to be able
to accept credit cards by the July IETF Meeting).
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
______ $130.00 if RECEIVED BY Feburary 22, 1991
______ $190.00 AFTER February 22, 1991
Make Checks payable to:
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
Mail this form with your check to:
Ms. Candice Moshos
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
1895 Preston White Drive, Suite 100
Reston, Virginia 22091
If you require additional information or assistance, please
contact Candice Moshos at (703) 620-8990, or
cmoshos@nri.reston.va.us.
Phill Gross (pgross@NRI.RESTON.VA.US)
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
INTERNET PROJECTS
-----------------
BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN INC.
----------------------------
Terrestrial Wideband Network (TWBNet) and ST/IP Gateway
-------------------------------------------------------
During January, work continued on the new "southern loop" to be
added to the TWBNet. A Wideband Packet Switch (WPS) was installed
in Albuquerque and connected to the Mobile WPS. The next steps
will be to connect up a gateway at Los Alamos National Lab, and set
up a circuit between the Albuquerque WPS and the Los Angeles WPS.
The addition of this southern path will provide added robustness in
the form of an alternate route between the east and west coasts and
will also allow shorter tail circuits to Southern sites.
A new ST/IP gateway was installed at the Warrior Preparation Center
(WPC, Ramstein AFB, Germany). The WPC-ST gateway is connected to
the TWBNet node at BBN via a 256 Kbps circuit, and supports
multimedia video conferencing between WPC and other DARPA
conferencing sites.
There were eleven video conferences and three demos. There were
eight point-to-point conferences, two 3-site conferences, and one
4-site conference. The demos were all point-to-point. Of note,
UCL participated in five of the connections. Conferences were held
for the following areas: DARPA Planning and Scheduling Program,
DWSNET, and the ICB meeting. Participants included, Mark Pullen,
Ira Richer, Paul Mockapetris, Peter Kirstein, Danny Cohen, Jon
Postel and Bob Braden.
This month, a new conferencing gateway was added at BBN. This
gateway is being used to support 4-way conferencing with the high
quality PictureTel codec. Since the PictureTel is designed to
support two way, point-to-point conferences, this new gateway was
needed to serve as a hub for supporting multi-site conferences
using this codec. Video and audio traffic comes in from 4 sites
via 4 point-to-point connections. The gateway then mixes the video
and audio from these 4 sources and sends the mixed data back out on
the point-to-point connections. Two 3-way conferences were
supported by this new gateway.
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Inter-Domain Policy Routing
---------------------------
During January, work on IDPR continued on at least three different
fronts. At this time, one of the most important actions for the
IDPR working group is to complete several small tasks in
preparation for submitting the IDPR protocols into the IETF
standards process. Some working group members have already taken
on some of these tasks; however, several tasks are still
outstanding. We plan to hold a video conference in February to
determine who will do the as yet unclaimed tasks.
The IDPR development team with members from SAIC, USC, and BBN has
done a great job with the prototype. Each of the development team
member sites is pursuing experiments on their own networks. We are
also planning experiments over the Internet among the three sites.
This will give us the ability to construct non-trivial
interconnections between administrative domains. It is exciting to
see the protocols operate in "real" networks. Now that BBN has
become a fully operational DARTNET site, thanks to the efforts of
Walt Prue of ISI and the BBN group led by Karen Seo, we can now
proceed with the DARTNET experiments that we have been alluding to
over the past several months.
BBN is also pursuing the "research" topic of policy-based resource
allocation: a combination of policy-based routing, resource
reservation, and flow control. Currently, we are surveying what
has been done previously in this area, including the work of the
COIP working group of the IETF.
Jil Westcott (Westcott@bbn.com)
CSUNET
------
CSUnet (The California State University network) interconnects all
of the twenty CSU campuses across the State of California and
supports their special instructional and administrative needs.
CSUnet is established to benefit the State of California
educational arena.
With that in mind, the upper level management has ongoing talks
with the State of California Department of Education (K-12) (DOE)
to establish projects that allow students and administrative bodies
to utilize the resources and connectivity of CSUnet. That activity
has brought about some projects with DOE that now use CSUnet. In
addition, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office and
the CSU have begun a joint venture to connect some of the
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
California Community Colleges.
Currently, X.25, TCP/IP, DECnet, AppleTalk, and SNA are supported
across CSUnet. We cooperatively working together with Calinet
(California Internet Federation) to provide backup routing for the
BARRnet, CERFnet, and Los Nettos regional networks.
The original funding for the IP routers (cisco systems routers) in
CSUnet came from NSF through CERFnet. All of the operating costs
are paid by State of California funds controlled by the California
State University Chancellor's Office.
CSUnet is conducting an upgrade of the entire network spanning over
the next one to two years. The backbone will shortly be upgraded
(1st and 2nd quarter 1991) to T-1 speeds (1544Mbps) with upgrades
to existing links following in by groups thereafter.
Michael Marcinkevicz (mdm@NOC.CSU.NET)
FARNET
-------
On January 14-15, 1991 FARNET members attended the quarterly
meeting held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss what role FARNET
should play in the networking community. Representatives of the
consulting firm hired by FARNET, Northeast Consulting Resources,
Inc., attended the meeting. The counsulting service was hired by
FARNET to assist the organization to develop avision for the future
of FARNET and a strategic plan for attaining that vision.Final
report is to be submitted to the Strategic Planning Committee in
February.
Elections for Vice President were held to fill the vacancy left by
the resignation of Joel Maloff. A Board of Directors was also
voted in. The complete FARNET Board is as follows:
President-Glenn Ricart
Vice President-Susan Estrada
Treasurer-Bill Yundt
Secretary-Tom Bajzek
Director-Eric Hood
Director-Ken Klingenstein
Director-Guy Almes
The proceedings for the Boulder meeting were completed and
distributed to the membership in Las Vegas. FARNET members who did
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
not receive a copy may send a request to carlos@cerf.net.
As of January 15 the FARNET Membership consisted of 28 networks.
by Carlos Robles <roblesc@cerf.net>
ISI
---
GIGABIT
This month was partially spent looking into issues that involve
FDDI, in preparation for the ordering of hardware and subsequent
installation of a small FDDI network at ISI. This involved
discussions with SUN salesman, pricing, reading related FDDI
papers, and so on. Another subject of study was an investigation
of ATOMIC for the new GIGA contract. In particular, gathering and
reading papers related to MOSAIC.
Greg Finn (finn@isi.edu)
Jon Postel hosted the IAB, IESG meetings and Bob Braden hosted the
FEPG (Federal Engineering Planning Group) meeting at ISI, January
7-10, 1991.
Three RFCs were published this month.
RFC 1170: Fougner, R., "Public Key Standards and Licenses",
Public Key Partners, January 1991.
RFC 1180: Socolofsky T., C. Kale, "A TCP/IP Tutorial", Spider
Systems Limited, January 1991.
RFC 1198: Scheifler, B., "FYI on the X Window System", MIT,
January, 1991.
Ann Westine (Westine@ISI.EDU)
MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCING PROJECT
This month we successfully interoperated both packet voice and
packet video between the SPARC and the Butterfly implementations of
the VT (voice) and PVP (video) programs. The Butterflies are part
of the existing multimedia conferencing system and the SPARC is the
first of several new platforms to be used for workstation
conferencing. The enabling event was the installation of an ST
gateway with IP encapsulation capability on the Butterfly at ISI.
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The VT test included a 3-way connection with two Butterfly VTs at
RIACS and BBN to test sound mixing in the SPARC VT at ISI. The PVP
test was with PictureTel codecs between ISI and BBN. Both programs
implemented software byte-swapping of the data to compensate for
the swapping done by the I/O interface on the Butterfly. We still
need to measure performance quantitatively, but the basic
functionality looks good.
We are making the VT program available to other researchers who
want to experiment with packet voice. The VT source code is
available via anonymous FTP; "vt.101.tar.Z" is located on
"venera.isi.edu" in the "pub" directory. The version number, e.g.
"101", will be updated as changes and additions are made.
A new release of the Butterfly version of PVP, the video packet
host, was made which incorporates a number of previously mentioned
enhancements plus: the ability to select data streams for display
on the video monitor of sites specified in HCP (Host Control
Protocol) messages; response to ICMP (Internet Control Message
Protocol) inquiries; multiple PVPs in the same Butterfly machine;
and a safety mechanism to prevent packet congestion in case of
codec malfunction.
In the future, we plan to scale up packet video to high-definition
images. Steve Casner made a presentation on this topic at the
Information Exchange Conference on High-Definition Systems at
DARPA. Scaling up the number of sites is another challenge: As an
aside to the IESG meeting at ISI, that group was given a demo of
BBN's MMConf shared worskpace, and the members expressed the desire
to hold teleconference meetings with as many as 15 participants all
running MMConf.
Eve Schooler attended the 24th Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences where she presented the invited paper, "Multimedia
Conferencing: Has it come of age?", by Schooler, Casner and Postel.
Eve Schooler, Steve Casner, Annette DeSchon, Dave Walden
(schooler@ISI.EDU, casner@ISI.EDU, deschon@ISI.EDU,
djwalden@ISI.EDU)
JVNCNET, NORTH EAST RESEARCH REGIONAL NETWORK
---------------------------------------------
JvNCnet report for NOVEMBER 1990 and DECEMBER 1990
JvNCnet
Princeton University
B6 von Neumann Hall
Princeton, N.J. 08544
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Internet Monthly Report January 1991
Director: Sergio Heker
Compiled by Rochelle Hammer
General telephone number 609-258-2400
Network operations 609-258-1544
The first issue of Megabytes has been published and distributed to
our mailing list. Send email to megabytes-request@jvnc.net to
place your name on our list. We are interested in having our
readers express their views, comments, and suggestions about
Megabytes.
The JvNCnet Regional Meeting took place on January 25, 1991 at
Princeton University. Dr. Jane Caviness, NSF Deputy Director, Dr.
Anthony Villasenor, Director of the NASA Science Internet, John
Clement, Educational Consultant at EDUCOM, Ann Robertson, Director
of Computing at Mitchell College, New London, Connecticut, and John
Hagan, Senior Network Engineer at the University of Pennsylvania
formed our panel of guest speakers. The meeting's focus
concentrated on why and how the pre-college curriculum may derive
significant benefit by incorporating the regional and national
computer network matrix. Utilizing computer networks may raise
students' scholarship and revitalize and strengthen all disciplines
in the curriculum. Advanced data communications technology may be
the unconventional instrument to focus or sharpen a student's
interest in learning and for recognizing the value of intellectual
challenges. Speakers also addressed the potential that networking
may provide such as accessing and collecting information and
references, launching novel educational and instructional
opportunities, forging and maintaining electronic partnerships and
communication internally and with outside elementary and secondary
schools, colleges and industry.
The broad issues of how networking appears to be a compatible fit
into the NREN big picture was another highlight. Some specific
enhancements and innovative programs developed using networking and
its spectrum of resources were detailed.
JvNCnet group leaders conducted parallel work sessions to elicit
dialog among members about operations, information services,
engineering, and installation. Participants collaborated on
specific subjects which may lead to networking enhancements for
members and their end-users.
Rounding off the meeting, attendees listened to a descriptive
Westine [Page 16]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
account of networking at the University of Pennsylvania campus.
Throughout the day, we had the developer of a new Hypertext
application for locating and reviewing RFCs, their corrections and
updates, present a demonstration. Currently the software operates
on a PC386 with Microsoft Windows 3 and a Macintosh- compatible
version is planned.
JvNCnet statistics and other operational data are available from
the monthly reports via anonymous ftp on nisc.jvnc.net.
Engineering reconfigurations have improved the performance of the
BNSs located in New Haven, Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, and
Newark. Each BNS was consolidated from three routers to one
router. One router is configured to attach to both backbone links.
Overflow from the backbone router will transfer to another router.
Currently there are five DS1 circuits and six DS0 circuits going
into the Newark BNS.
JvNCnet's backbone upgrade is currently in progress. Its purpose
is three-fold: To reduce the diameter (number of hops) of the
JvNCnet backbone by reconfiguring the links on the routers; to
improve switching performance by upgrading the routers to CSC3
processors; and to minimize operating costs by relocating POPs
based on geographic location.
NEARnet now uses a shared network segment at Princeton consisting
of an Ethernet multiport provided by JvNCnet. It allows direct
peering with a separate E-PSP. This is an interim measure until the
Boston NSS becomes operational. The result has reduced the traffic
load to the JvNCnet backbone. Traffic between JvNCnet and NEARnet
does not go through the E-PSP but rather through one of JvNCnet
routers bridging JvNCnet and the shared segment.
A filter has been placed on all JvNCnet border gateways to ensure
that JvNCnet traffic will not flow through an announced peer NSFnet
route with a very low metric.
JvNCnet is currently offering a very exciting new access option for
dial up users. Dialin'Tiger provides terminal access, SLIP
connectivity, up to 19.2kbps bandwidth, access to the Internet
from the cities of Philadelphia, Trenton, Princeton, New York, New
Haven, Newark, Providence, and Boston. A Dialin'Tiger user
receives an account on tigger.jvnc.net, a dedicated platform for
additional applications. For further information send email to
nisc@nisc.jvnc.net.
Rochelle Hammer <hammer@nisc.jvnc.net>
Westine [Page 17]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
LOS NETTOS
----------
No changes have occured in Los Nettos in the last month. The
network remains stable.
Walt Prue (Prue@ISI.EDU)
MERIT/MICHNET
-------------
At the January Board meeting, revised By-laws reflecting the name
change from Merit Computer Network to Merit Network, Inc., and
MichNet (for the statewide network) were distributed. Copies of
Merit's Acceptable Use policy with final changes were also
distributed; this policy is available for anonymous FTP on the
machine NIC.Merit.edu, or by mail inquiry to nis-info@NIC.Merit.edu
(type HELP as the message text to receive instructions).
At this same board meeting, new officers were elected: Dr. Morteza
Rahimi of Wayne State University as chair, Dr. Paul Hunt of
Michigan State as vice chair,Dr. Robert DeBruin of Central Michigan
University as secretary, and Harvey Behmof Western Michigan
University as treasurer.
In January Merit/MichNet released user authentication software
called the Authorization Server. When a user attempts to telnet out
of the MichNet mid-level network, the Authorization Server asks for
a user ID and password on a trusted host, so that MichNet can track
which user connected to which Internet host. This was needed
because MichNet users, including thousands of users who dial in to
the network, can connect to telnet and other services without
having to first log in to a host. In a future enhancement, the
Authorization Server will allow MichNet to charge for services that
don't have any charging facilities of their own.
by Pat McGregor <patmcg@merit.edu>
MIT-LCS
-------
This month MIT connectivity to Dartnet was established.
Chuck Davin (jrd@PITT.LCS.MIT.EDU)
Westine [Page 18]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
MITRE Corporation
-----------------
Shari Galitzer and Walt Lazear visited GTE Spacenet's net
monitoring center on 29 January, where they received detailed
briefings on GTE's network design techniques, satellite management
center, and communications services management center. Judy
Messing, Shari, and Walt attended a demo of Compression Labs'
videoconferencing product line to identify the state of the art in
low cost videoconferencing.
Their approach to multipoint conferencing is to have sites call a
central hub (using switched 56kb) that coordinates the conference
(who sees whom) at about $40-50k per site. However, their point to
point videophone (made for ATT) that will give full motion color
over home phone lines will go for $1500. This product is due out
later this year.
Several MITRE staff participated in a detailed tour of the DCA Net
Management Center. Ray Butler and Dan O'Brien gave a thorough tour
of the DSNET, MILNET, help desk, and computer room facilities.
This tour was highly instructive and showed how DCA is upgrading
their facilities, while battling with older technologies.
Several demonstrations were given during the month: Forrest Palmer
and Walt demonstrated SunNet Manager and Cisco NetCentral software
to DCA operations, engineering, and program personnel. The demo
was well received and resulted in direct impact on selection of a
monitoring package for the T1 pilot network. Shari demonstrated
the BBN- developed MultiMedia Conferencing software to DCEC sponsor
personnel. The result of our interest to apply MMCONF to network
problem-solving has resulted in renewed BBN support. Another MITRE
group presented a briefing about the DCA Pacific demo of ATT's
Accumaster net management integration product. The demo is showing
how a graphic user interface can be used to monitor (but not
control) existing proprietary systems (circuit switches and
transmission media).
Walt and Forrest began to work out the allocation of Testbed
resources. Experiments being scheduled for use of the Testbed
include JTC3A (MITRE multicast simulation), DCEC (SAIC IDPR
testing), IETF (MITRE congestion avoidance and X.400 Pilot), DCEC
(net management), DIA (MITRE net simulation), and JDSSC (MITRE NICS
OSI transition).
Walt Lazear (lazear@gateway.mitre.org)
Westine [Page 19]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC.
----------------------------------------
The NNSC has received an overwhelming response to the Internet
Manager's Phonebook. We have now placed the ASCII database file
for the phonebook online. The file, "phonebook.txt", is available
through anonymous FTP at <nnsc.nsf.net> in the directory
"phonebook". Please note that the online version does not contain
postal addresses for the managers listed within the phonebook. For
more detailed information, retrieve the README file from
nnsc.nsf.net, in the "phonebook" directory.
Printed copies of the phonebook may be purchased, at cost, for
$15.00 per copy. Check or money orders should be made payable to
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. The order should be sent to: The NSF
Network Service Center (NNSC), Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., 10
Moulton Street, Mail Stop 6/3B, Cambridge, MA 02138. Please be
sure to include the following account number on your check: 06480
and specify that this is for payment of the phonebook.
The NNSC distributed additions to Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the
Internet Resource Guide.
by Corinne Carroll <ccarroll@nnsc.nsf.net>
NSF BACKBONE (Merit)
-------------------
The inbound packet count for the T1 NSFNET backbone during January
1991 totaled 5,867,911,410 packets, an increase of 21.92% over the
December 1990 total of 4,812,968,474 packets. As of January 29th,
2331 networks are configured for announcement on the NSFNET
backbone.
With the continued growth in traffic, the partnership has been
monitoring the effects of increasing loads on each of the T1
backbone nodes. A change was made to the external interface of the
T1 backbone node at College Park, MD to improve performance and
split the traffic load. Additionally, external interfaces at
Ithaca, NY and Palo Alto, CA have been upgraded to improve
performance at those sites.
T3 hardware and circuit installations are complete at six nodes:
Ann Arbor, MI; Cambridge, MA; Palo Alto, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; San
Diego, CA and Urbana-Champaign, IL. During January, plans to
increase production traffic on the T3 backbone were delayed due to
problems encountered during deployment.
Westine [Page 20]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
A new award from the National Science Foundation to Merit Network,
Inc. will allow for the expansion of T3 service to all of the
current NSFNET backbone sites not already part of the first T3
phase. The eight additional T3 sites are Atlanta, GA; Boulder, CO;
College Park, MD; Houston, TX; Lincoln, NE; Princeton, NJ; Salt
Lake City, UT and Seattle, WA.
Successful interoperability testing of an FDDI interface for the T3
technology with Proteon routers and DEC DS 5000s has taken place.
FDDI will allow for a 100 Mbps lan interface.
As the NSFNET matures, becoming a largely operational environment,
Hans-Werner Braun decided to leave his position at Merit to focus
on networking issues of a more advanced research nature. In mid-
January, he moved to SDSC to initially work on the CASA very-high-
speed communications network research project, part of the CNRI
gigabit testbed initiative, as a Co-PI. Eric Aupperle, President
of Merit Network, Inc., has temporarily assumed administrative
responsibility for the Internet Engineering group at Merit,
formerly managed by Braun.
Guests at the Merit Network Operations Center included
representatives from U.S. Sprint and Cornell University, who will
be jointly managing the international connections to INRIA and
NORDUnet.
Eric Aupperle represented the NSFNET project at the FARNET meeting
held in Los Vegas, Nevada. Elise Gerich of Merit/NSFNET Internet
Engineering, was its representative to a meeting of the FEPG in Los
Angeles.
Another in the series of Merit Networking Seminars presented by
Merit/NSFNET Information Services is being planned for mid-May in
Ann Arbor, MI. Continuing the commitment to provide current
information on national networking, the program will focus on
issues of interest to campus computing leaders, information systems
and networking administrators, educational liaisons, librarians and
educators who want to learn more about national networking.
Program details will be available soon; electronic inquiries may be
made to seminar@merit.edu or phone 1-800-66-MERIT.
Jo Ann Ward (jward@merit.edu)
Westine [Page 21]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
NDRE and NTA-RD
---------------
NDRE and NTA-RD has nothing to report this month.
Anton B. Leere <leere@ndre.no>
PREPNET
-------
No progress to report this month.
PREPnet NIC (prepnet+@andrew.cmu.edu)
SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER
------------------------------
During the month, the most significant item was the installation of
2 FDDI rings. A production ring created by upgrading our Network
Systems HyperChannel100 equipment to FDDI interfaces. A new, third
box was added to provided FDDI connections for systems with
existing NSC low speed connections (PI-xxx cards).Thus our
production FDDI ring connects to our Cray, our IBM, and 4 VME/VAX
typeconnections via NSC equipment.
The second ring was completed by connecting the FDDI card in out
NSFnet T3 router with cards in two of our larger SUN's. These
later cards were loaned to SDSC by the local SUN office to assist
with the testing of the T-3 FDDI interface. At this time, testing
continues.
A FDDI concentrator from DEC is awaited any day. This will be used
in our expanded ring.
A long ordered NSC VME interface was received and connected into a
SUN which will be used as a FTP gateway to DataTree. Our NCUBE's
frontend SUN has also been connected to a low speed port into the
FDDI ring via a NSC interface card loaned by CRI.
During Jan we gatewayed over 150,000 mail messages through our
SoftwareTools mail software.
by Paul Love <loveep@sdsc.edu>
Westine [Page 22]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
SESQUINET
---------
January saw several technical and operational developments in
Sesquinet. Firstwas the bringing up of our connection to the NASA
Science Internet. There is now a (Proteon) NSI router on the same
ethernet that includes the Houston NSFnet Backbone router (NSS-11)
and several Sesquinet routers. This NSI routeris connected to a
neighboring NSI router at the Johnson Space Center via a T1
circuit. This connection will both provide a direct connection
between Sesquinet and NSI and will improve the performance of
access to the NSFnet Backbone by NASA users at JSC.
A second development was the upgrading of our hub routers at Dallas
and Houstonto cisco AGS+ configurations.
Recent connections to Sesquinet include Teledyne Geotech, Mobil,
and Clear LakeHigh School.
One notable transient this month was our one-week support for T1
connections from both the Uniforum and Usenix conferences in
Dallas. Circuits and equipment all performed well and came up
smoothly.
by Guy Almes <almes@rice.edu>
SRI
----
SRI NIC
During the month of January, the Internet Registry (IR) at SRI
assigned 385 IP network numbers. The total of all IP numbers
assigned is now 26,537. The total number of assigned Autonomous
System numbers (ASNs) is now 1,217.
We have been working closely with NSF and Merit personnel to ensure
uninterrupted service for those networks that may have been
negatively affected by DDN Management Bulletin #80. Although they
no longer recognize the concept of "connected" versus "unconnected"
status IP numbers and the notion that U.S. Government sponsorship
is necessary for networks, NSF has agreed to grant sponsorship to
all IP networks that were assigned during the period of time that
RFC 1174 procedural changes were in effect.
There are currently a total of 2,322 registered domains which
includes 59 at the top level, 2,244 at the second level, and 19
third-level MIL domains.
Westine [Page 23]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
Cumulative Statistics
Month/Year Class
A B C Total
Jan. 1991 39 4,247 22,251 26,537
Dec. 1990 36 4,305 21,811 26,152
Nov. 1990 35 4,198 21,149 25,382
Oct. 1990 36 3,846 19,386 23,268
Douglas MacGowan (macgown@nisc.sri.com) Mary Stahl
(stahl@nisc.sri.com)
FOX Project
As a precursor to interoperability experimentation, we obtained and
installed prerequisite software on various Sun Workstations at SRI.
ISODE 6.0 and QUIPU were installed. A DSA representing SRI and the
Network Information Systems Center was created. This DSA, named
San Joaquin Kit Fox, has joined the White Pages Pilot Project.
NIST's X.500 implementation (Custos) was also installed. SRI is
the first group outside of the NIST to compile and run Custos,
hence, thanks are due to the folks at NIST for their support while
working through a few difficulties. We are creating a DSA that
stores SRI and NISC information. These two DSAs will form the
basis for initial interoperability tests.
SRI will host the third meeting of the IETF Directory Services
Working Group on February 12-13.
Ruth Lang (rlang@nisc.sri.com)
UCL
----
UCL hosted 4 video conferences in January including a CCIRN
meeting, a demonstration of BBN's shared map planning tool, and the
ICB meeting. These were beteen London, and either Boston or
Washington.
A new researcher has started work on analysing traffic patterns on
the UK-US "Fat Pipe" link in the presence and absence of video
Westine [Page 24]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
traffic. Prelimary results show the bandwidth sharing scheme on
the link works well and that we are lucky that most contemporary
TCP implementations are "well behaved". Almost all retransmissions
are at the beginning of connnections due to default initial timers
being low for the path. The sooner the RTT estimate is cached in
the routing table, the better.
[Last month we ommitted to report that S. Kille; had attended the
IETF and attended an OSI Directory Working Group meeting - this
group is now very active].
We are currently measuring IP performance over JANET links from
London to other UK sites, with a view to extending the conferencing
facility. This will, of course, take some time.
John Crowcroft (j.crowcroft@CS.UCL.AC.UK)
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
----------------------
1. Usage of the Fuzzball NTP primary time servers has been
escalating to the point that the claimed millisecond accuracy
has recently been degrading. A number of changes were made to
the fuzzware encryption and queueing code in hopes of
reversing that trend. Happily, the result is that the
pristine millisecond tick has been restored.
2. The recent fuzzware changes do not necessarily bring joy in
future, since every indication is that the load on the
NSFnet-centric fuzzballs and probably the other primary time
servers will continue to increase. To offset some of that
trend, the fuzzware was further amended to restrict access in
certain cases. Details are provided in a message sent to the
NTP interest group.
3. A preliminary investigation into the timekeeping accuracy and
stability of clocks synchronized over T1 facilities such as
DARTnet has been completed. The results, distributed to the
DARTnet interest group, confirm that time transfer using IP
over such facilities, at least for low to moderate traffic
loads, can provide accuracy to a millisecond and stability to
a millisecond per day.
4. Erik Perkins, Mike Davis and Dave Mills attended a DARTnet
teleconference in deprived-video mode.
Dave Mills (Mills@UDEL.EDU)
Westine [Page 25]
Internet Monthly Report January 1991
WISCNET
-------
Circuit installation started on 1/15/91 with T1 lines from the five
backbone sites to the State of Wisconsin Department of
Administration T1 network. The first backbone sites were running
on 1/17/91 while the whole backbone was up on 1/22/91.
Installation of the 16 end node 56k DDS sites started on 1/17 with
the first site operational 1/17. The remaining sites were
installed during the rest of January (as of 1/29/91 two sites are
not yet operational).
All sites now have Internet access through UW-Madison's CICNet
connection.
Work for next month includes moving connectivity for UW-Milwaukee,
UW-Parkside, and Marquette University from the current 56K DDS link
to NCSA to WiscNet. Current dedicated BITNet links will be dropped
and moved to JNet DECNet sessions.
All sites are busy installing name servers, mail routing, and mail
user agents.
The user services committee is well along with development of model
documentation and plans to distribute it next month. A series of
meetings with site user consulting staff are planned.
Draft information aimed at possible new members and a draft
membership agreement have been written.
Michael Dorl (dorl@vms.macc.wisc.edu)
Westine [Page 26]