~ December 1992 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 Cooper (Cooper@ISI.EDU) NSF Regional reports - Corinne Carroll (ccarroll@NNSC.NSF.NET) Directory Services reports - Murali Venkateshaiah (murali@ISI.EDU) Requests to be added or deleted from the Internet Monthly report list should be sent to "imr-request@isi.edu". Details on obtaining the current IMR, or back issues, via FTP or EMAIL may be obtained by sending an EMAIL message to "rfc- info@ISI.EDU" with the message body "help: ways_to_get_imrs". For example: To: rfc-info@ISI.EDU Subject: getting imrs help: ways_to_get_imrs TABLE OF CONTENTS INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 Internet Projects BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 8 CONCERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 10 CSUNET (CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NETWORK). . . . . . . page 10 ISI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 11 JVNCNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 12 LOS NETTOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 NEARNET (NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK) . . . page 13 NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . page 15 NORTHWESTNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16 NSFNET/ANSNET BACKBONE ENGINEERING. . . . . . . . . . . . page 17 NSFNET/INFORMATION SERVICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 22 PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 23 SDSC (SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER) . . . . . . . . . . page 24 CALENDAR OF EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 25 INTERNET RESEARCH REPORTS ------------------------- INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS ---------------------------- 1. The next IETF meeting is scheduled for Columbus, Ohio from March 29th through April 2, 1993 (yes, this does mean that the IESG Open Plenary will be held on April first). The meeting is being co-hosted by OARNet and The Ohio State University. There will be a registration reception on Sunday, March 28. Logistic and registration information will be forthcoming from the IETF Secretariat. The 27th meeting of the IETF, scheduled for July of 1993, will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and will be co-hosted by SURFnet and RARE. This will be the first time an IETF meeting has been held outside of North America. Negotiations are still in progress for the meeting facilities and catering arrangements, and there will be a higher fee for this meeting (estimated to be at least $200). More information will be provided as it becomes available. 2. After reviewing the increased intertwining of OSI activities with the work in the other areas, the IESG has decided to adjust the area boundaries to integrate most of the current OSI activities with the Applications and Internet areas. Dave Piscitello will join Phil Almquist and Stev Knowles as a co- director of the Internet Area, and Erik Huizer will join Russ Hobby as a co-director of the Applications Area. All of the current work in progress is continuting unchanged. 3. The IESG issued 12 Last Calls to the IETF during the month of December, 1992: a. FTP-FTAM Gateway Specification b. Definitions of Managed Objects for the DS1 Interface Type c. Definitions of Managed Objects for the DS3 Interface Type d. Definitions of Managed Objects for the DS1 and E1 Interface Types e. Definitions of Managed Objects for the DS3/E3 Interface Type f. SMTP Service Extensions g. SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration h. Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8Bit-SMTP/MIME i. SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport j. Mapping between X.400(1984/1988) and Mail-11 (DECnet mail) k. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol l. The String Representation of Standard Attribute Syntaxes 4. The IESG approved the following 8 actions during the month of December, 1992: a. Ident MIB as a Proposed Standard b. Identification Server as a Proposed Standard c. Telnet Authentication Option as an Experimental protocol d. Telnet Environment Option as a Proposed Standard e. Telnet Authentication: Kerberos Version 4 as an Experimental protocol f. Telnet Authentication : SPX as an Experimental protocol g. The Common Management Information Services and Protocols for the Internet (RFC 1189) was moved to Historic status h. FTP-FTAM Gateway Specification as a Proposed Standard 5. Forty (40) Internet Draft actions were taken during the month of December, 1992: (Revised draft (o), New Draft (+) ) WG I-D Title ------ --------------------------------------------------------- (cat) o Generic Security Service Application Program Interface (nntp) o Network News Transfer Protocol Version 2: A Protocol for the Stream-Based Transmission of News (cat) o Distributed Authentication Security Service (x400ops) o Routing coordination for X.400 MHS services within a multi protocol / multi network environment (x400ops) o Mapping between X.400(1984/1988) and Mail-11 (DECnet mail) (x400ops) o Operational Requirements for X.400 Management Domains in the GO-MHS Community (osids) o Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (bgp) o A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4) (snmpv2) o Protocol Operations for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpv2) o Introduction to version 2 of the Internet Network Management Framework (snmpv2) o Coexistence between version 1 and version 2 of the Internet Network Management Framework (snmpv2) o Textual Conventions for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpv2) o Structure of Management Information for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpv2) o Manager to Manager Management Information Base (snmpv2) o Transport Mappings for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpv2) o Management Information Base for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (none) o TCP/IP: Internet Version 7 (822ext) o Japanese Character Encoding for Internet Messages (bgp) o Definitions of Managed Objects for the Border Gateway Protocol (Version 4) (avt) + Issues in Designing a Transport Protocol for Audio and Video Conferences and other Multiparticipant Real-Time Applications (none) o Criteria for Choosing IP Version 7 (IPv7) (snmpv2) o Conformance Statements for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (smtpext) o Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8Bit-SMTP/MIME (snmpsec) o Party MIB for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpsec) o Security Protocols for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpsec) o Administrative Model for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (pppext) + Compressing IPX Headers Over WAN Media (CIPX) (x400ops) + Assertion of C=US; A= (avt) + A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications (avt) + Media Encodings (avt) + Sample Profile for the Use of RTP for Audio and Video Conferences with Minimal Control (dns) + A Strategy for Encoding Hierarchical Addresses in Internet Name Services (none) + Definitions of Managed Objects for the HIPPI Interface Type (none) + A RFC Subseries for IETF Statements Of Policy (SOPs) (appleip) + AppleTalk Management Information Base II (snmpsec) + Transport Mappings for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpsec) + Security Protocols for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpsec) + Management Information Base for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpsec) + Party MIB for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) (snmpsec) + Administrative Model for version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2) 7. Two (2) RFC's were published during the month of December, 1992. RFC St WG Title ------- -- -------- -------------------------------------- RFC1383 E (none) An Experiment in DNS Based IP Routing RFC1386 I (none) The US Domain St(atus): ( S) Internet Standard (PS) Proposed Standard (DS) Draft Standard ( E) Experimental ( I) Informational Steve Coya (scoya@cnri.reston.va.us) Phil Gross (pgross@nis.ans.net) INTERNET PROJECTS ----------------- BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN INC. ---------------------------- InterDomain Policy Routing (IDPR) --------------------------------- During the past couple of months, we have been preparing the gated software for the IDPR pilot Internet installation planned for early 1993. This pilot installation involves three transit domains (including NSF and NASA) and four source domains. Transit policies will be set by the participating transit domains. During the pilot installation, only that traffic designated as IDPR will be handled by IDPR. Regular production traffic traversing the participating domains will not be affected by the pilot installation. Moreover, none of the existing routers within any of the participating domains requires IDPR software. Sun workstations will act as policy gateways for the participating domains. Each source domain will have at least one policy gateway associated with it, and each transit domain will have two policy gateways associated with it. The pilot installation will have both an experimentation component (reconfiguration of policies and observation of the resulting effect on the IDPR traffic) and a field trial component (allowing IDPR to run uninterrupted for several weeks). At the conclusion of the pilot, we will be publishing the results as an Internet Draft. Preparation for the pilot involves modifying the gated software in three ways: (1) Add support for source policies, so that sources can request routes with specific characteristics and so that route servers can generate such routes. (2) Permit multiple policy gateways to reside in a single router. The policy gateways acting on behalf of the three transit domains will reside on the FIXes. There will be one router per FIX, which will act as a set of policy gateways on behalf of the three participating transit domains. (3) Add the ability to collect selected protocol trace information for post-processing. The pilot installation will be in place for several weeks, and hence we need to be able to accurately track its performance. BBN and SRI together have already added the source policy capabilities to the gated software. We, at BBN, have successfully tested the new source policy software on a set of workstations in our test lab. Currently, we are in the process of making the necessary software modifications to permit multiple policy gateways to coexist in a single router. Scaleability Project (aka Project 10^4) --------------------------------------- Over the past months, BBN has been examining the problems and possible solutions associated with large-scale geographically- distributed real-time simulations. To date, such simulations have been limited to approximately 1000 simulated entities by the network load imposed by the current method of data distribution to simulation sites, which involves all traffic being sent to every participant. The simulation community wishes to handle 10^4 entity real-time simulations by 1995, and 10^5 entity simulations by the year 2000. The gap between current practice and these goals led to the creation of this project. The project is developing a toolset for investigating application and networking behaviors, and for evaluating new algorithms and techniques for better utilizing the long-haul network. The toolset includes a simulation simulator, which uses a modified SAF (Semi- Autonomous Forces) simulator to generate simulation traffic representing 10,000 entities at a variety of sites, over the course of a several-hour exercise; a "scaler" component, which serves as a test harness to evaluate various compression and data distribution techniques; and a modular, medium-resolution, flow-level network simulator, which allows evaluation of various multicast technologies, network topologies, and routing and congestion algortihms, as well as the evaluation of the effects of application scaling algorithms on network traffic and performance. Several successful demos of the preliminary scaleability toolset were given during November, using a network topology based on the current Defense Simulation Internet (DSInet), and a hypothetical future DSI based on T3 backbones. Karen Seo CONCERT ------- MCNC held it's second Packet Video Workshop on December 9th and 10th. This was a workshop intended for those involved with Packet Video from product development, planning, installation, management and analysis points of view. Over 125 representatives of industry, government, and research institutions from around the Internet attended. The workshop was sponsored by the Packet Video Consortium, the National Science Foundation and MCNC. The workshop was broadcast over the Internet using IVS and NV for video and VAT for audio. CONCERT staff members participated with staff from the NSF, LBL, ISI and Xerox PARC in giving a demonstration to a representative of the Clinton-Gore transition team showing the current capabilities of videoconferencing over the Internet. A multipoint videoconference among the above groups was held using VAT and NV. by Tom Sandoski CSUNET (THE CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NETWORK) ----------------------------------------------- In November, the California State University Network (CSUNET) agreed with the San Diego SuperComputer Center Network (SDSCNET) to install a T-1 multiplexer at the SDSC center to enable the institutions to share SDSC's nationwide supercomputer center videoconferencing channel. SDSCNET has a 384 Kbps fractional T-1 from MCNC in North Carolina to San Diego. The existing T-1 between CSUNET and SDSCNET will carry both video and TCP/IP Internet bound traffic. As part of the agreement, CSUNET will be installing a gateway at SDSCNET to peer with the ENSS at San Diego. In December, CSUNET improved its dialup CSUNET access ports (CAPS) software. The new features allow better call monitoring and control. The gateway from X.25 to TELNET has also been upgraded for better security and call tracking. Because of the improvements to CAPS, CSUNET has connected AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA) servers which are available for use by CSU Chancellor's office staff. CSU campuses are investigating installation of similar services to provide their faculty with remote access at their homes. A new SLIP service using the CAPS dialup service has been installed which allows remote IP access from any CSU campus CAPS dialup pool. The service uses SLIP software on CSUNET's Telematics X.25 network to route the SLIP connection to an X.25/IP router. Mike Marcinkevicz (mdm@CSU.net) ISI --- GIGABIT NETWORKING Infrastructure Walt Prue and Ann Cooper attended a DSI-NIC seminar at NRAD, in San Diego, CA, December 8-9, 1992. Joyce Reynolds traveled to Brisbane, Australia as opening keynote speaker at the Networkshop '92, "User Services Planning in the Internet and the Internet Society", November 28 - December 10, 1992. Joyce Reynolds traveled to Tokyo, Japan to speak to Jun Murai, Masaki Hirabaru, and the JNIC committee on the Internet Society and User Services Planning in the Internet, December 11 - 17, 1992. Two RFCs were published this month. RFC 1383: Huitema, C., "An Experiment in DNS Based IP Routing" INRIA, December 1992. RFC 1386: Cooper, A., Jon Postel, "The US Domain", USC/ISI December 1992. Ann Cooper (Cooper@ISI.EDU) MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCING Our original implementation of the multimedia conference control program (MMCC) was under SunView, but conversion to X windows is a practical requirement for continued development and use. We have made a preliminary conversion to XView this month except for a few pieces of functionality that don't convert directly. Slides and annotations on the topic of "A Software Architecture for Packet Teleconferencing" were prepared for the 2nd Packet Video Workshop at MCNC, Research Triangle Park, NC, Dec 9-10, 1992; the presentation itself was given by Fengmin Gong of MCNC, with ISIers listening in and watching over the MBONE. We were involved in several trial demonstrations of BBN's Synchronization Protocol over the DARTnet. In particular, we served as an endpoint for a distributed music demonstration, performing one of the instrument parts of a Haydn trio in real-time and providing feedback about the sound quality and synchronization accuracy. Eve Schooler, Steve Casner (schooler@ISI.EDU, casner@ISI.EDU) JVNCNET ------- JvNCnet-Global Enterprise Services, Inc. B6 von Neumann Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 1-800-35-TIGER I. New Information A. New on-line members (fully operational December 1992) Oster & Associates, Bel Air, MD Scott Tilden, Inc., Pennington NJ Expert Information Systems, Philadelphia, PA J.Wine, Honolulu, HI Labware, Inc., Wilmington, DE J. Anglum, Flanders, NJ LANLOGIC, Inc., Dunwoody, GA University of New Haven, West Haven, CT M. Losher, Woodbridge, CT Syncro Development Corp., Langhorne, PA B. Internet Resources and Applications Symposium (one day) Date: February 19, 1993 Time: 8:45 to approx. 4:30 Location: Princeton Marriott Forrestal Village, College Road, Plainsboro, NJ (five min. north of Princeton on U.S. Rt. 1). Audience: New, intermediate and potential Internet users as well as network user support personnel and anyone who wants to learn about what electronic resources are available and their location. A panel of experts will discuss the following topics: Navigating Internet (Merit, Inc.) WAIS, gopher, archie 'tools' (Princeton University) American Mathematical Society's interactive application: e-MATH Scientific and Technology Network electronic resources Lexis and Nexis (Mead Data Central) Knowbot searches (Digital Library project, CNRI) Electronic humanities (Columbia University) Dialog on-line resources Cost: Early bird registration by February 9, 1993. Visa/Mastercard will be accepted. Early Reg. Late Reg. JvNCnet members $250.00 $293.00 Non-members $275.00 $325.00 Block of five @1290.00 $1390.00 Registration includes attendance to the symposium, handout materials, book, continental breakfast, and lunch. The agenda and directions will be sent upon receipt of registration. Contact: hammer@jvnc.net C. JvNCnet Members Meeting - February 5, 1993 Location: Princeton Marriott Forrestal Village, Plainsboro, NJ Time: 8:45 to 4:00 Email registration: registration@jvnc.net Rochelle Hammer (hammer@jvnc.net) LOS NETTOS ---------- Los Nettos is providing M-Bone access. During December we extended this access to two more sites. Walt Prue (Prue@ISI.EDU) NEARNET (NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK) --------------------------------------------------- NEARnet Membership ================== As of December 31, 1992, NEARnet has grown to a total of 181 member organizations. NEARnet Newsletter ================== NEARnet has published and distributed the latest issue of the NEARnet Newsletter. Annual NEARnet Seminar ====================== The Annual NEARnet Seminar for 1992 was held on December 16, from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the University Events Center at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Close to 240 participants attended the seminar. Stephen Hall, Director of the Office for Information Technology at Harvard University, welcomed the attendees and highlighted NEARnet and NREN accomplishments for 1992. John Rugo, the NEARnet Manager, gave a detailed status report on NEARnet's accomplishments for 1992. John Curran of the NEARnet Staff lead a discussion of NEARnet's Commercial Routing Service. The keynote speaker, Henry H. Perritt, Jr., professor of law at Villanova University School of Law, and member of the president elect's transition team on federal communications, presented an overview of the legal issues dealing with first ammendment rights, rights of access, and tort and criminal liability of network intermediaries. One of the guest speakers was Tracy LaQuey Parker, a Network Information Specialist at the University of Texas System Office of Telecommunication Services, editor of the "User's Directory of Computer Networks", and author of "The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking" . Tracy discussed the past, present, and future of Internet User and Information Services. She also gave an overview of the Texas Education Network (TENET) and the Texas Higher Education Network (THEnet). Another guest speaker was Peter Deutsch, president of Bunyip Information Systems and one of the architects of the archie information system, as well as an active researcher in the area of Internet-based Information discovery and access tools. Peter gave an overview of internet tools, services and information, including: Gopher, W3, archie, WAIS, WHOIS, X.500, Prospero, and Andrew. He also discussed future plans in this area, including: a new version of archie and the WHOIS++ service. Peter also spoke of future management issues Internet service providers will need to address in this new market. Mohamed Ellozy, director of research information services at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and member of the Longwood Medical Area Network (LMAnet) spoke of his experience with the integration of heterogeneous mail systems at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Ed Anselmo, network analyst for NEARnet, gave a presentation of Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) which included an overview of Multimedia Mail and MIME history as well as a technical overview, examples, and references for more information. Participation in Massachusetts Telecomputing Coalition (MTC) Forum ================================================================== Jim Naro, manager of NEARnet User Services, participated in the MTC "Using the Internet" forum at the PALMS Institute at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Some of the participants included members of the MTC Teacher Advisory Committee, MTC Matchmaker Project and their NEARnet partners, and math and science teachers participating in the NSF-funded Project Palms. by Corinne Carroll NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC. ---------------------------------------- Internet Resource Guide Update ============================== The NNSC staff has distributed updated and new entries to every chapter of the Internet Resource Guide. The 100 new items include updates and additions to chapters 1 through 6, and chapter M (Miscellaneous). A copy of the latest announcement listing these revised/new entries is available via anonymous FTP at nnsc.nsf.net, in the filename: resource-guide/announce/an-92-7. Latest issues of THE SCIENTIST Newspaper now available online ============================================================= Online copies of THE SCIENTIST Newspaper are available to the NSFNET/Internet community via anonymous FTP at the nnsc.nsf.net machine. The filenames are: the-scientist-YYMMDD (YY=Year, MM=Month, DD=Date). These files are also available via the NNSC Info-Server, an automated program which delivers information via electronic mail. To receive the help file for the Info-Server, in addition to an index and an overview of the-scientist directory, send mail to: info-server@nnsc.nsf.net. In the body of the message type the lines: Request: the-scientist Topic: help Topic: index Topic: overview Request: end Corinne Carroll NORTHWESTNET ------------ NorthWestNet is pleased to be a partner with the Pacific Northwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine in the implementation of a project recently funded by the National Library of Medicine. The project is titled "From Bench to Bedside: Research and Testing of Internet Resources and Connections in Community Hospital Libraries." The project has three major components: bringing Internet connectivity to seven participating community hospital libraries located in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington; exploring network-based access to anatomical images; and providing a directory of DNA diagnostic laboratory directory information to clinicians in these communities. The goal of the project is to research the technical, financial, and user support models of implementing Internet access and services in the health care community. Participants at the community hospitals will include librarians, network support staff, researchers, and clinicians. The project will extend through the spring of 1994. ----------------- NorthWestNet info@nwnet.net 15400 SE 30th Place, Suite 202 Phone: (206) 562-3000 Bellevue, WA 98007 Fax: (206) 562-4822 Dr. Eric S. Hood, Executive Director Jan Eveleth, Director of User Services Dan L. Jordt, Director of Technical Services Anthony Naughtin, Manager of Member Relations NorthWestNet serves the six state region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, and Washington. by Jan Eveleth NSFNET/ANSNET BACKBONE ENGINEERING ---------------------------------- Network Status Summary ====================== Following the T1 backbone disconnection on Dec. 2nd, the T3 is now supporting all NSFNET services. A 2nd ethernet interface was installed in ENSS136 to support interim connectivity to the MAE- East facility. The former T1 backbone class B address (129.140) was returned to the NIC. CA*Net peer router hardware reconfigurations will be completed in January to allow direct T3 network peering. A plan has been developed to dismantle and remove the RT routers at regional sites. Following the software changes resulting from instabilities observed during the MBONE multicasts in November, the T3 backbone routing stability has been very good in December. Daily reports are now generated on internal and external peer network routing stability. Seven new RS960 FDDI interfaces were installed on ENSS nodes in December. Reliability and performance of the FDDI hardware has been very good. Backbone Traffic and Routing Statistics ======================================= The total inbound packet count for the T3 Backbone (measured using SNMP interface counters) was 22,009,352,089 up 5.0% from November. As of December 31, the number of networks configured in the NSFNET Policy Routing Database was 8561 for the T3 backbone. Of these, 1760 were never announced to the T3 backbone. The maximum number of networks announced to the T3 backbone during the month (from samples collected every 15 minutes) was 6187. Average announced networks on 12/31 were 6154. Previously when the T1 Backbone was operational the overall average number of networks announced via the primary configured AS path was around 88%. Since the T1 Backbone was dismantled this average has gone to around 95%. Graphs of this information are available for anonymous ftp on merit.edu, in pub/nsfnet/offnet, as postscript files. Routing Software and Stability on the T3 Network ================================================ Higher than usual MBONE activity in November resulted in exterior routing instabilities and routing instability internal to ANSnet. Following the immediate corrective actions that were taken in November, a number of software changes were made in December. Changes to the RS960 microcode and efficiency improvements in the routing software have resulted in improved ANSnet internal routing stability (regardless of the presence of external route flapping). The MBONE participants have made changes to route MBONE traffic over the T3 backbone whenever possible, resulting in improved routing stability within certain US regional networks. Detailed reports of internal ANSnet and external peer network routing instabilities are now generated on a daily basis. The ANSnet internal report attempts to summarize outages based on number and duration of the IBGP disconnects. The program that generates this report looks at IBGP disconnects in a short time window. It tries to assign the outage to the node with the most disconnects, and then eliminate all disconnects on other machines associated with that router. If after eliminating disconnects related to the router assigned to the outage, more disconnects remain in the same time window, the process is repeated, assigning secondary and tertiary responsibility for the outage and so on until all disconnects are accounted for. The time window is extended to cover all disconnects that are not separated by more than a five minute period in which there is no change to internal routing in the network. Using this method, data sufficient to generate reports on internal ANSnet routing stability has been collected continuously since October reported 99.0% internal routing stability (no changes to internal routing). These two nodes reported 98.9% stability, mostly due to a problem early in December. Most nodes reported 99.0% to 99.5% stability. Two reported better than 99.5% stability. The vast majority of this instability is due to the regular configuration updates and scheduled maintenance. With the dismantling of the T1 backbone, activities are underway to reduce the duration of time required to process the bi-weekly router configuration runs, and scheduled maintenance. Similar data on external routing stability has been collected continuously since December '92. The external routing stability reports will record an external route which is withdrawn from the ANSnet due to: (1) an EGP route timing out (not being advertised by an external peer), (2) an explicit BGP unreachable received from an external peer, (3) the loss of an external EGP or BGP session that is not accompanied by loss of internal IBGP sessions. Excluded are the following cases: (1) we do not observe changes in the next hop at the ENSS, (2) the route is replaced by another route on the same ENSS, (3) a route is lost and backed up by another route on the same ENSS, (4) connectivity is lost due to ANSnet internal problems (e.g. configuration runs or other). Some of this data has already been shared with specific regional networks to get feedback. In January, these reports will be fully automated and distributed to peer networks which are advertising networks that are withdrawing reachability excessively (e.g. exhibiting great instability). After the recent FIX-East reconfiguration, a bug in rcp_routed was observed that would result in an ENSS installing a route locally that had previously been advertsized by a peer, where the route was rejected on the ENSS due to policy constraints (no NACR request). Such a route would incorrectly be installed on the ENSS (but not advertised) when the destination becomes completely unreachable. On ENSS136, the existence of multiple peers coupled with the use of default routing by some peers could form a routing loop when this occurs. This problem in the rcp_routed software has been corrected and is deployed on ENSS136. Deployment of the same changes across the rest of the ANSnet is scheduled for early January. Another planned change to rcp_routed in January involves fixing the metric_in function for EGP. This will allow regional peer routers to be able to have an EGP session with the same ENSS on two different interfaces (FDDI and ethernet) and prefer the FDDI via metrics. RS960 FDDI Deployment Status ============================ During the month of December, we installed RS960 FDDI adapters at the following 7 locations: Boston (E134), Argonne (E130), FIX-E (E145), Houston (E139), Ithaca (E133), FIX-W (E144), Seattle (E143). Domain Name Service for ANSnet ============================== In December, ANS made two adjustments to the DNS administration of the ANS backbone. First, the "t3.nsf.net" domain was renamed to "t3.ans.net", and second, we added geographical designators to all CNSS nodes. ENSS names were not changed other than in being moved to the "t3.ans.net" domain. The following excerpt of a traceroute from ANS Elmsford to Merit in Ann Arbor illustrates the ANSnet DNS conventions. 3 t1-2.New-York-cnss35.t3.ans.net (140.222.35.4) 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms ANS Elmsford's ENSS is attached to T1 Port #2 on CNSS35 (a T1 concentrator in the New York POP). 5 t3-3.New-York-cnss32.t3.ans.net (140.222.32.4) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms 6 t3-1.Cleveland-cnss40.t3.ans.net (140.222.40.2) 23 ms 22 ms 24 ms The T3 point-to-point line between the New York POP and the Cleveland POP is on these two T3 ports on CNSS32 and CNSS40. 7 t3-0.Cleveland-cnss41.t3.ans.net (140.222.41.1) 22 ms 23 ms 23 ms The Ann Arbor ENSS is attached to T3 Port #0 on CNSS41 (the T3 concentrator in the Cleveland POP). 8 t3-0.enss131.t3.ans.net (140.222.131.1) 30 ms 27 ms 27 ms 9 merit.edu (35.1.1.42) 29 ms 39 ms 31 ms The merit.edu machine is one hop from ENSS131 which is physically located in a University of Michigan building. While every effort was taken to ensure the accuracy of the DNS data, typos and glitches may have crept in. If you notice any problems, please report them by sending mail to hostmaster@ans.net. OSI Support on T3 Backbone ========================== In early December, OSI CLNP forwarding over the T3 backbone was configured via encapsulation of CLNP over IP packets using the EON method (RFC1070) until native CLNP switching services are available on the T3 routers. One RT from the T1 NSS node at each midlevel/peer site is being used for the EON encapsulation function. It is our intention to keep this RT and one other for statistics collection purposes running at each site. CA*Net Reconfiguration Status ============================= CA*Net is working with Merit and ANS to complete their plan to change their connections to the US (at Seattle, Ithaca and Princeton) so that the US nodes will run the CA*Net RT kernel and become logically part of the Canadian routing domain. This project has not yet been completed, and so currently the three NSS nodes from the T1 Backbone (but without the T1 circuits) are being used to route traffic between CA*Net and NSFNET. Once the software installation is complete the circuits will be moved over to these RTs and the full NSS noes will be disabled. AIX 3.2 Migration Plan ====================== System testing continued in December for the new AIX 3.2 operating system for the RS/6000 routers. This software will be installed on the T3 test network in January for final system testing prior to deployment in early February. GATED Routing Software Development ================================== Work continued on the development of GATED as replacement for rcp_routed software on the T3 backbone. The same Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) used by rcp_routed will be supported initially on GATED as a transitional measure to simplify the deployment of GATED. Full IS-IS integrated routing will follow in GATED, along with BGP4 with CIDR routing capability. New ANSnet Nodes Installed ========================== ENSS Customer Access Date Active ---- -------- ------ ----------- 206 CERN T1 12-01-92 187 CIX T1 12-04-92 209 H.W. Wilson T1 12-04-92 207 Siemens 56k 12-07-92 177 N.Y. Bank T1 12-09-92 199 Dept. of Trans. 56k 12-11-92 179 MCNC Backup 56k 12-15-92 Cisco PROM Upgrade on ANSNET ============================ We are finalizing tests that will allow us to upgrade the software level on all ANSnet Cisco routers to 9.0(3). This will fix several bugs that currently exist on the current 8.3.X that is installed across the network. Jordan Becker (becker@ans.net) Mark Knopper (mak@merit.edu) NSFNET/INFORMATION SERVICES --------------------------- The Merit/NSFNET Regional Techs meeting will be held in Boulder, Colorado, January 21 and 22. The conference will convene at US WEST's Advanced Technologies Conference Center in the University of Colorado's Research Park. NCAR and WestNet will also be hosting sessions and activities. The focus of the seminar is operational planning over the next 6-8 months: CIDR implementation will be discussed by Vince Fuller of BARRNET and Dan Long of NEARNET will give an overview of CIDR address allocation strategies; GIX, NAPS, and Route Servers will be presented by Elise Gerich of Merit to increase the understanding of the Internet routing implications of Network Access Points (NAPS) technology as proposed by NSF. The current status of the NSFNET network and the transition to the "Next Generation NSFNET" will also be addressed. Requests for the detailed agenda and additional information may be sent to nsf- seminar@merit.edu. "Making Your Internet Connection Count: Technology, Tools & Resources" will be held in San Francisco, CA, March 15-16. Hosted by BARRNET, the Merit Networking Seminar is a comprehensive forum intended for beginning and intermediate network users focusing on issues of interest to educators, librarians, campus computing leaders, information systems and networking administrators, and educational liaisons. Nationally known experts will discuss network resources, getting connected, and how the network is effectively being used today by universities, research organizations, libraries, and public schools. An overview of the Internet, its tools and resources, and the national policies that affect its growth will also be presented. A three-hour hands-on tutorial will be held in conjunction with the seminar at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. Merit staff will introduce participants to telnet, file transfer, and the latest in user friendly interfaces: Gopher, archie, and WAIS. Additional information and registration materials may be obtained via e-mail to: nis-info@nic.merit.edu with the first line of the message text as: send seminar.brochure.march93 Meetings of the NSFNET Partners and the NSFNET Executive Committee were held in Ann Arbor, MI on the 10th and 11th of December, respectively. The breadth and depth of Information Services activities were reviewed, acknowledging the increasing awareness and role of user services in the Internet world. The CAUSE 92 Preconference, sponsored by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) was held December 1 in Dallas, Texas. With emphasis on "Navigating and Navigators: Research and Development in Navigational Tools and Services for the Internet," Laura Kelleher of Merit/NSFNET Information Services, presented a study on what is being used on the Internet as well as participating in several discussions of Internet tools and resources. Kelleher also "cruised" the Internet with the members of the Southeastern Michigan Library Association at Oakland University, MI. Jo Ann Ward (jward@merit.edu) PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER -------------------------------- Since our last report, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center accepted delivery of the CRAY Y-MP C90, the newest and most powerful supercomputing system produced by Cray Research, Inc., the Minnesota-based firm that has supplied most of the supercomputing systems in use around the world. The PSC is the first non- government site in the U.S. to receive the new system. The C90 features 16 connected processing units, each of which is capable of performing a billion calculations a second, so that peak speed is 16 billion calculations a second -- six times faster than Cray's current top-of-the-line system, the Y-MP/8, which the C90 will replace. It comes configured with 256 million words, (2 billion bytes) of memory, eight times that of the Y-MP/8, and will be upgraded to 512 million words sometime this year. Under the proposal for the National Machineroom Metacenter, the National Science Foundation Centers are specializing within the general class of massively parallel processors in order to provide both large machines and good vendor coverage for use by the community. We at the PSC are planning our major activity with the CRAY MPP: T3D, while NCSA will make a major thrust with the Thinking Machine Corporation's CM-5. TMC found a need for the CM-5 that we have had for the past year; and because of this, we have taken it out of service. To that end, we have already begun to work on applications using the T3D Emulator Software. In November, Matt Mathis and Gene Hastings of our communications group attended the IETF meetings in Washington, DC. Matt chairs the BGP Deployment working group and Gene chairs the Network Status Reports and Network Joint Management groups. by Stephen Cunningham SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER -------------------------------- SDSC Network Activities ======================= During the month we made two major changes to our LAN. The DMZ Ethernet was changed from a subnet of our Class B address (132.249) to its own Class C address (198.17.47.) At the same time, the Center's FDDI ring was split in two. This gives us an FDDI DMZ. Its Class C address is 198.17.46. by Paul Love CALENDAR -------- Readers are requested to send in dates of events that are appropriate for this calendar section. Please send your submissions to (cooper@isi.edu). 1992 CALENDAR Dec 6-9 GLOBECOM '92, Orlando, Florida (See IEE Pub.) Dec 7-11 DECUS '92, Las Vegas, NV Dec 13 T1AG Dec 14-18 OIW, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD Dec 18 ECTUA General Assembly, 1993 CALENDAR Jan RARE Council of Administration, TBC Jan 4-7 Intl Workshop on Intelligent, Jan 5-7 ANSI X3S3.3, Menlo Park, Ca Jan 11-15 TCOS WG, New Orleans Jan 25-27 RIPE, Prague Jan 25-29 USENIX, San Diego Feb 1-5 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6/WG3 and WG6, London Feb 8-12 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6/WG1 and WG4, London Feb 11-12 PSRG Workshop on Network and Distributed System Security, San Diego, Ca Feb 28-Mar 3 Modeling & Analysis of Telecommunication Systems, Nashville, TN Mar 8-12 INTEROP93, Wasington, D.C. Dan Lynch (dlynch@interop.com) Mar 8-12 OIW, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD Mar 15-19 Uniform, San Francisco Mar 24-31 CEBIT 93, Hannover, Germany Mar 29 - Apr 2, IETF, Columbus, Ohio Apr 5-19 TCOS WG, Boston (tentative) Apr 14-16 National Net'93, Wash D.C. (net93@educom.edu) Apr 18-23 IFIP WG 6.6 Third International Symposium on Integrated Network Management, Sheraton Palace Hotel, San Francisco, CA (kzm@hls.com) Apr 20-22 ANSI X3S3.3, Orlando, FL May 10-13 4th Joint European Networking COnf., JENC93 Trondheim, Norway May 13-14 RARE Council of Administration, Trondheim May 23-26 ICC'93, Geneva, Switzerland May-Jun PSTV-XIII, University of Liege. Contact: Andre Danthine, Jun 2-4 ANSI X3S3.3, Raleigh, NC Jun 7-11 OIW, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD Jun 15-30 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21, Yokohama Jun 21-25 USENIX, Cincinnati Jun 30 RARE Technical Committee, Amsterdam Jul 12-16 IETF, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Jul 12-16 TCOS WG, Hawaii (tentative) Aug 1-6 Multimedia '93, Anaheim, CA Aug 17-20 INET '93, San Franc, CA (inet93@educom.edu) Aug 18-21 INET93, San Francisco Bay Area Aug 23-27 INTEROP93, San Francisco Dan Lynch (dlynch@interop.com) Sep 13-17 SIGCOMM 93, San Francisco Sep ?? 6th SDL Forum, Darmstadt Ove Faergemand (ove@tfl.dk) Sep 8-9 ANSI X3S3.3, Boulder, CO Sep 13-17 OIW, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD Sep 20-31 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6, Seoul, Korea. Sep 28-29 September RIPE Technical Days, TBC Sep 30-Oct 2 Paris Oct INTEROP93, Paris, France Oct 12-14 Conference on Network Information Processing, Sofia, Bulgaria; Contact: IFIP-TC6 Oct 18-22 TCOS WG, Atlanta, GA (tentative) Nov 2-4 ANSI X3S3.3, TBD Nov 9-13 IEEE802 Plenary, LaJolla, CA Nov 15-19 Supercomputing 93, Portland, OR Dec 6-10 OIW, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD 1994 CALENDAR Apr 18-22 INTEROP94, Washington, D.C. Dan Lynch (dlynch@interop.com) Jun 1-3 IFIP WG 6.5 ULPAA, Barcelona, Spain Einar Stefferud (stef@nma.com) Aug 29-Sep 2 IFIP World Congress Hamburg, Germany; Contact: IFIP Sep 12-16 INTEROP94, San Francisco Dan Lynch (dlynch@interop.com) 1995 CALENDAR Sep 18-22 INTEROP95, San Francisco, CA Dan Lynch (dlynch@interop.com) ========================================================================