Editor's Note: Minutes received 12/2/92 CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Pat Smith/Merit Minutes of the Network Information Services Infrastructure Working Group (NISI) Thirty-Three people attended the NISI session. April Marine (co-Chair) was unable to attend. Agenda 1. nic-profiles 2. net-help, immediate and future 3. Future of NISI. Nic-profiles History: the nic-profiles concept was conceived at the St. Louis meeting in March 1991. The idea behind nic-profiles is to obtain and maintain key pieces of information about NICs around the world that will be easily accessible to all the NICs. A mail server is in place to add/modify/retrieve nic-profiles information. Send to x500test@merit.edu and put ``help'' in the subj: field to receive further information. This project is now an action item at the top of the NISI priority list. The near-term goal is to have information on as many NICs as possible by the March IETF. Suggestions were made that we make every effort to utilize any collections of information that may already exist and that we try to approach the ``right'' people when attempting to obtain this information so that the request doesn't get tossed in the black hole. Three volunteers, Charlotte Mooers (NNSC/BBN), Marsha Perrott (PREPnet) and Bill Yurcik (NASA) will work with Pat Smith (Merit) on proactive outreach to discover as many NICs as possible, group them in some logical way, and then proceed with making the contacts to interest them in filling out a template and submitting it to nic-profiles electronically. Net-help Current plans. Extensive discussion took place regarding how we are going to keep net-help as simple as possible. A sampling of questions/comments: 1 o Where will the information coming from? o The contents of the help screen should be managed locally. Each site should be able to control where they send their users. o How ``smart'' will net help be? o What about dial-ins where the IP is dynamically assigned? After discussion of these and other points, Ed Kroll volunteered to write an ``implementation requirements'' brief document as a starting point. Ed will send his draft out to the list. The plan is that we will hack on it at the next meeting and, hopefully, come up with agreed-upon written requirements which we can then use to work with the applications folks and work toward a feasible implementation plan. The other very brief paper will summarize the nethelp plan as it stands now, including the screen that was agreed on at the July '92 meeting. Jack Hahn (SURAnet) volunteered to write this one. There was some further discussion on how nethelp will be enhanced in the future. Future of NISI Again there was a short of period of discussion regarding the future of NISI. The Group consensus is that NISI is needed and will continue as a viable Working Group. Attendees Steve Bucey sabucey@ns.pacbell.com Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu James Conklin jbc@bitnic.educom.edu Naomi Courter naomi@concert.net Tim Dixon dixon@rare.nl Greg Dobrich gdobrich@nalusda.gov Roger Fajman raf@cu.nih.gov Jill Foster jill.foster@newcastle.ac.uk Jack Hahn hahn@sura.net Deborah Hamilton debbie@qsun.att.com Alf Hansen Alf.Hansen@delab.sintef.no Alisa Hata hata@cac.washington.edu Masaki Hirabaru hi@nic.ad.jp Ellen Hoffman ellen_hoffman@um.cc.umich.edu Laura Kelleher lak@merit.edu Edward Krol e-krol@uiuc.edu Gary Malkin gmalkin@xylogics.com Janet Marcisak jlm@ftp.com Bob McCollum bobm@nic.ddn.mil Michael Mealling michael@fantasy.gatech.edu Mitra mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us Charlotte Mooers mooers@nnsc.nsf.net 2 Pete Percival percival@indiana.edu Marsha Perrott mlp+@andrew.cmu.edu Joseph Ramus ramus@nersc.gov Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu Richard Rodgers rodgers@nlm.nih.gov Jane Smith jds@jazz.concert.net Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu Janet Vratny janet@apple.com Chris Weider clw@merit.edu Scott Williamson scottw@nic.ddn.mil William Yurcik yurcik@dftnic.gsfc.nasa.gov 3