Applications Area Directors: o Erik Huizer: erik.huizer@surfnet.nl o John Klensin: Klensin@mail1.reston.mci.net Area Summary reported by John Klensin/MCI and Erik Huizer/SURFnet This is a short report on the status of the Applications Area as of the conclusion of the San Jose IETF meeting, December 1994. The Applications Area current contains the following working groups: o Access/Synchronization of the Internet Directories (ASID) o Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) o HyperText Markup Language (HTML) o Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) o Internet White Pages Requirements (WHIP) o Mail Extensions (MAILEXT) o MHS-DS (MHSDS) o Notifications and Acknowledgements Requirements (NOTARY) o Quality Information Services (QUIS) o TFTP Extensions (TFTPEXTS) In addition, the Applications Area and the User Services Area jointly oversee the following working groups: o Integrated Directory Services (IDS) o Integration of Internet Information Resources (IIIR) o Networked Information Retrieval (NIR) o Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) o Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS) The status of these groups is described in the User Services Area Report. The TELNET Working Group (TELNET) was concluded since the last area report. TELNET had completed all of its tasks except some documents in telnet security and privacy. After review, it was concluded that the security and privacy issues should be addressed in a separate working group to be formed in the Security Area. The OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS) was also concluded, having completed all of its agenda items. During the San Jose IETF, the Applications Area also sponsored the following BOF sessions. These BOFs are expected to evolve into working groups. o HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) o HTTP Secure (HTTPSEC) o Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) All of the Applications Area BOFs from the previous IETF meeting in Toronto have evolved into working groups: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Quality of Information Services (QUIS) in Applications, and Support of Firewalls by Applications (SOFA) and Authenticated Firewall Traversal (AFT) in Security. HyperText Transfer Protocol BOF (HTTP) A BOF met to consider IETF standardization of HTTP, the protocol used for file transfers in the World Wide Web. It concluded that it would be useful to document the existing practice in an RFC and then go on to specify and standardize some extensions, possibly looking toward a new version of the protocol. A draft working group charter was discussed and is now under development. HTTP Secure BOF (HTTPSEC) This BOF, jointly sponsored by the Applications and Security Areas, is discussed in the Security Area report. Standard Generalized Markup Language BOF (SGML) As predicted after the Toronto IETF, a group has been formed to examine the issues associated with using full SGML over MIME. This group will work cooperatively with SGML Open. A working group charter for this group was being reviewed by the IAB and IESG concurrently with the San Jose meetings. The working group goal will be to generate a Proposed Standard for encapsulating SGML in MIME. The charter will state that the working group will not propose any changes to the SGML standard (ISO 8879) and will support the SGML Open Technical Report on interchange packages (TR 9401 - Issue B). It was agreed that there was sufficient interest to establish the MIME Content-Type for SGML Documents Working Group (MIMESGML). An issues list was developed and milestones were reviewed and established. Access/Synchronization of the Internet Directories Working Group (ASID) Agreement was reached on the following documents: o string dn, ufn: will be submitted for approval as Draft Standards as soon as possible. o LDAP documents: will be submitted for approval as Draft Standards, pending confirmation that there are independent server implementations. o CLDAP document: has already been submitted for approval as Proposed Standard. o WHOIS++ query language: will be submitted for approval as Proposed Standard. o WHOIS++ centroids document: will be revised in light of centipede pilot and resubmitted by the next IETF. o SOLO: will be split into two documents: query language and navigation. Query language will be submitted for approval as Proposed Standard as soon as possible. Navigation will be revised pending centipede outcome and progressed then. o X.500 schema: will be revised to include words about 93 schema and submitted as an Experimental RFC. o labeledURL: suggestion was made to change it to labeledURI, which will be communicated back to the author. Also, discussion was held on the ``oid in RFCs'' problem. Conclusion was that there should be a document produced saying how an IANA-allocated arc should be used, that this arc should be used for future standards documents when possible, and that old oids should not be transitioned. Electronic Data Interchange Working Group (EDI) The EDI Working Group reviewed work to-date on the specification for encapsulating EDI within MIME objects. This document, of which a new draft was circulated at the meeting, is expected to go into working group Last Call by December 10, and to the IESG for processing as a Proposed Standard by December 24. The working group again discussed the need for a paper discussing the use of EDI in an Internet context. That document has not made significant progress since the Toronto meeting, and will be abandoned if significant progress is not made before the next IETF Plenary. Hypertext Markup Language Working Group (HTML) The HTML Working Group met twice. The first meeting recommended that (subject to consensus extending to the net) the HTML 1.0 specification be submitted as Proposed Standard after small edits. There was a discussion of how the line end CRLF current practice should be reconciled with Internet standards as written, and about hooks for the extension to exotic character sets. The second meeting discussed higher level features known as level 3. Dave Raggett presented an outline of the features, and several were discussed. The end of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of style sheets and formatting instructions with a presentation of a proposal by Alex Hopmann. Internet Message Access Protocol Working Group (IMAP) Since the last meeting, the IMAP Working Group forwarded its basic protocol and informational documents to the IESG. Those documents were approved and forwarded to the RFC Editor, where they await publication. The working group reviewed its status and that of implementations and decided that its primary work had concluded. Internet White Pages Requirements Working Group (WHIP) This group did not meet in San Jose. The two documents that the group was supposed to produce are out as Internet-Drafts. Discussions on the list seem to indicate that some minor modifications are needed, after which the documents will be submitted to the IESG. MHS Directory Services Working Group (MHSDS) Having progressed all of its core documents to RFC status, MHS-DS decided to declare victory and disband. At this final meeting, the working group also reviewed the status of its Long Bud pilot project. The status of Long Bud will continue to be tracked through the MHS-DS distribution list, and it will be managed under the IDS Working Group. Since the last IETF, the following documents were forwarded to the RFC Editor for publication as Experimental RFCs with the approval of the IESG. o Use of the Directory to support mapping between X.400 and RFC 822 Addresses o Representing the O/R Address Hierarchy in the Directory Information Tree o Representing Tables and Subtrees in the Directory o MHS use of Directory to support MHS Routing ``Introducing Project Long Bud'' was forwarded for publication as an informational RFC with IESG approval. Mail Extensions Working Group (MAILEXT) Mail Extensions continues to make progress in reviewing and consolidating changes and clarifications to the mail protocols. At this meeting, a further review of the proposal to install a new reply code turned up several loose ends, including new discussion about utility and side effects. Work will continue on the mailing list. The group reviewed mechanisms for specifying the language used in MIME body parts and for SMTP pipelining. With small alterations, these will be forwarded for processing as standards track RFCs. Other work that is not yet ready for further processing includes definition of a file transfer body part for MIME (similar to the X.400 file transfer body part) and checkpointing and binary options for SMTP. The working group concluded that the latter two should be implemented and the implementation tested before the documents are progressed. Notifications and Acknowledgements Requirements Working Group (NOTARY) The meeting reviewed several major outstanding proposals, including multipart/report (ready to be progressed after some additional text is inserted), delivery reports (need additional work and discussion), and new status codes. The latter continues to be a difficult problem, with the group trying to balance the desire for high precision with the desire to get something finished within the next few months. The SMTP service extension for delivery reports, by contrast, appears to be progressing smoothly. The working group is developing strategies for settling those issues that can be settled and postponing those that cannot and should begin moving some of its work onto the standards track before the next IETF. Quality Information Services Working Group (QUIS) The QUIS Working Group met for the first time. It was agreed to set up a new list called quality-errors@naic.nasa.gov which would be a repository for errors working group members encounter and explanations of why they happened. Those who are currently logging link errors in information services will submit at least a paragraph summarizing their observations of common problems. These notes combined will be written up and submitted as an Internet-Draft by the next meeting. This is the first Internet-Draft the group is tasked to do. TFTP Extensions Working Group (TFTPEXTS) This working group was chartered since the last IETF to review several proposed extensions to the Trivial File Transfer Protocol. It reached consensus on the issues on its mailing list before the meeting, reviewed them at the meeting, and adjourned with a recommendation to progress the documents to Proposed Standard.