CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_


Reported by David A. Borman/Cray Research, Inc.

TELNET Minutes

This was a rather short meeting.  We met as a group for the first half
of the meeting, and then adjourned to meet with the Authentication/
Privacy and Security Research Group (PSRG) joint meeting.

In our meeting we discussed:
Problems/questions about the 4.3Reno version of telnet/telnetd.  One
problem is that the latest BSD release does not send telnet ``Synch''
commands.  The code is there, but it is commented out.  This is because
some clients do not handle a ``synch'' properly, and get stuck in a
loop.  It was decided that it would be better to release the code with
this feature turned on, with an option to turn it off if some site has a
problem with it.

The ``Don't Telnet'' option was discussed again.  There has been some,
but not a lot of interest in it.  Bill Westfield said that he would send
it out again with a drop dead date.  If people can't agree that it is a
good idea by the December IETF we will not have any future discussion on
it.

There was discussion of using telnet for running printers.  There were
two main things mentioned:  first you want to be able to connect to a
box and say which terminal port you want to connect to, and you want to
be able to send across information about how to set up the hardware on
the remote side.  The discussion revolved around whether or not this
sort of stuff belonged in telnet, or in a higher level protocol, and if
it was in telnet, how much could be done with existing options (like
ENVIRON)? It was decided that first someone needs to write up a list of
what functionality is needed to do printers over telnet, and then look
at that list and see how it maps into the current telnet spec, before a
decision can be made on whether or not it belongs in telnet, and if it
does, will any new telnet options be needed.

There was some discussion about international character sets.  At this
point, we don't really know what to do about them.  Should telnet know
about them?  How is CR/NL mapping handled?  Nothing was decided, this
issue will have to be pursued at a later date.

It was decided that we would like to start looking at reviewing/
editing/re-writing the base Telnet RFC. Joyce Reynolds said that Jon
Postel has a whole bunch of notes collected over the years that she will
make available in some form.  Part of the next Telnet WG meeting will be
used to get the editing of the Telnet RFC started.

It was requested that the tn3270 mailing list be put in the minutes of
the meeting.  The list is at WG3270-L@UMDD.UMD.EDU. To subscribe send

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mail to BRUCE@UMDD.UMD.EDU.

The Working Group then adjourned, and went to meet with the
Authentication/PSRG joint meeting.  When we arrived, they were deep in
discussion about SNMP authentication.  When that was wrapped up, David
Borman gave a brief overview to the group about the proposed Telnet
Authentication option, and what was hoped to be accomplished with it.
There was then discussion.  The basic question that we wanted answered
was ``Should we have a Telnet Authentication option, or should the
authentication be done outside of the realm of Telnet, such as in a
connection initiation protocol, which would happen before telnet started
up?''  This question was not answered, there were arguments for both
sides.

Without going into all the pros and cons of what was discussed, there
were two main things that came out of the discussion:


  1. There needs to be a clear written description of what the Telnet
     Authentication is to be used for.  The ``motivation'' section of
     the draft RFC is a bit terse, and should be expanded.
  2. The Telnet Working Group will continue to develop the
     authentication option.  Experimental implementations are being
     started.  Having an implementation and experience about it will be
     useful in answering the question ``Do we need it?''.


The Telnet Working Group will meet next at the December IETF meeting in
Colorado.

Attendees


Richard Basch            probe@mit.edu
Dave Borman              dab@opus.cray.com
Philip Budne             phil@shiva.com
Anthony Chung            anthony@hls.com
George Conant            geconant@eng.zyplex.com
Mark Crispin             mrc@cac.washington.edu
Kevin Fall               kfall@Berkeley.EDU
Neil Haller              nmh@bellcore.com
Russell Hobby            rdhobby@ucdavis.edu
Steven Hubert            hubert@cac.washington.edu
Ajay Kachrani            kachrani%regent.dec@decwrl.dec.com
Michael Karels           karels@berkeley.edu
Luping Liang             liang@cs.ubc.ca
Joyce K. Reynolds        jkrey@venera.isi.edu
Dana Sitzler             dds@merit.edu
Frank Solensky           solensky@interlan.interlan.com
Allen Sturtevant         sturtevant@ccc.nmfecc.gov
Dean Throop              throop@dg-rtp.dg.com
Bill Westfield           billw@cisco.com


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Yueli Yang               yueli@bnr.ca



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