Internet DRAFT - draft-nottingham-registry-custodian
draft-nottingham-registry-custodian
Network Working Group M. Nottingham
Internet-Draft August 7, 2012
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: February 8, 2013
Custodial Review Criteria for Designated Experts
draft-nottingham-registry-custodian-01
Abstract
This document specifies a set of review criteria for IANA registry
Designated Experts.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on February 8, 2013.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Nottingham Expires February 8, 2013 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Registry Custodians August 2012
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The Custodian's Role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Specifying Custodial Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Nottingham Expires February 8, 2013 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Registry Custodians August 2012
1. Introduction
This document specifies a set of review criteria for IANA registry
Designated Experts [RFC5226].
They are designed to be used when a registry is likely to have a
large number of registrations from outside the IETF community,
because they give the Designated Expert(s) limited powers to maintain
the registry's contents, while still having a low bar to entry.
Colloquially, such a Designated Expert is known as a "Custodian."
The goal of a registry using them is to reflect deployment with the
registry as closely as possible; in other words, if a protocol
element is in use on the Internet, it ought to appear in the
registry.
It is a non-goal to use the registry as a measure of quality (e.g.,
allowing only "good" registrations, imposing architectural
constraints onto registrations).
As such, these review criteria are not appropriate for all
registries.
A registry defined as Expert Review or Specification Required can
define the Expert's role as that of a Custodian by referencing this
document.
1.1. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
2. The Custodian's Role
The Custodian's primary duty is to maintain the registry's contents
by assisting new registrations, updating existing entries, and making
new registrations when a protocol element is widely deployed but
unregistered.
As such, they have considerable power, in that they can make material
changes to the registry content without oversight, beyond that
offered by the community at large.
However, in practice this power is quite limited. The Custodian is
not charged with acting as a gatekeeper, nor imposing requirements on
Nottingham Expires February 8, 2013 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Registry Custodians August 2012
new registrations. Rather, they are responsible for assuring that
the registry is kept up-to-date, reflecting the reality of
deployment.
In particular, a Custodian:
o MAY make suggestions to new registrations (e.g., "have you
considered...?")
o MUST NOT act as a "gatekeeper" to the registry (e.g., refusing
registrations based upon perceived or actual architectural or
aesthetic issues)
o MUST respect additional requirements placed upon registrations by
the registry definition when making decisions
o SHOULD consult with the community (using a nominated mailing list)
when there are disputes or questions about pending or existing
registrations
o MAY proactively document values in common use (usually, reflected
in the registration status, e.g., "provisional")
o MAY update contact details and specification references, in
consultation with the registrants
o MAY update change control for a registration, with appropriate
consent or community consensus, as appropriate
o MAY annotate registrations (e.g., with implementation notes,
additional context)
o MAY update the status of a registration (e.g., to "deprecated",
"obsoleted") as appropriate
o SHOULD announce significant changes to the mailing list, for
community review
Additionally, for Specification Required registries, a Custodian:
o MAY approve registrations when it is, in their judgement, apparent
that a specification will be published
o MAY consider specifications other than standards as meeting
"Specification Required". References are encouraged to be
reasonably stable, but references stability on its own SHOULD NOT
be an impediment to registration, because the Custodian(s) MAY
update it as necessary.
Members of the community who disagree with a Custodian's actions MAY
appeal to the Area Director(s) identified by the registry. However,
such appeals will be judged upon the criteria above, along with any
criteria specific to the registry and/or its chosen registration
policy.
Nottingham Expires February 8, 2013 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Registry Custodians August 2012
3. Specifying Custodial Registries
Registries established with a [RFC5226] Expert Review or
Specification Required policy can refer to this specification if they
wish to nominate the guidelines described here as review criteria for
Designated Expert(s).
Registries using the custodial process:
o SHOULD define a 'status' (or functionally similar) field that
indicates registration disposition, and SHOULD enumerate possible
values.
o SHOULD nominate a mailing list for discussion of registrations;
usually, this will be a pre-existing list (rather than a dedicated
one).
o MUST nominate the area whose Area Directors are responsible for
appointing Custodians and handling appeals.
o SHOULD identify the URL of the registry in their specification.
o SHOULD give IANA as the point of contact for new registrations.
o MAY place additional requirements upon registrations (e.g.,
syntactic constraints, clear guidelines for appropriate use)
4. IANA Considerations
For custodial registries, IANA:
o MUST send requests for registrations to the Custodian
o SHOULD respond to requests from the Custodian promptly
o SHOULD notify the responsible Area Directors if the Custodian is
unresponsive
o MUST provide an easily editable Web page about the registry to the
Custodian (e.g., a "wiki"), and link to it from the registry page
o MUST provide the capacity for the Custodian to annotate individual
registry entries (e.g., a "wiki" page for each entry)
5. Security Considerations
A Custodian has a considerable amount of leeway regarding the
contents of the registry, because they can effect a change in it
merely by asking IANA to do so. Therefore, registries that contain
security-sensitive information are advised to consider whether this
could form the basis of an attack; e.g., if an implementation
retrieves and utilises the contents of the registry automatically.
6. References
Nottingham Expires February 8, 2013 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Registry Custodians August 2012
6.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
6.2. Informative References
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
Author's Address
Mark Nottingham
Email: mnot@mnot.net
URI: http://www.mnot.net/
Nottingham Expires February 8, 2013 [Page 6]
