The Internet Engineering Task Force
maintains up-to-date, on-line information on all of its activities. The
following sub-sections contain:
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Web AccessIETF-related information is available via the World
Wide Web.
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The IETF information described below is available by anonymous FTP from several sites.
The Internet-Drafts on these machines are stored in UNIX compressed form. To retrieve this information, FTP to one of the above sites, log in with username anonymous and your e-mail address as the password. When logged in, change to the desired directory (using the cd command), and retrieve the desired files (using the get command). |
Internet-Drafts, and other IETF material, are available by mail server from ftp.ietf.org . To retrieve a file, mail a request to mailserv@ftp.ietf.org with a subject of anything you want. In the body, put one or more commands of the form: FILE /ietf/1wg-summary.txt Where PATH lists the e-mail address where the response should be sent. If you have the mpack utility or a MIME-compliant mail reader, you may want to use the additional command: ENCODING mime This command results in the information being returned in a MIME message. |
Below is a list of the files available in the IETF directory and a short synopsis of what each file contains. Files prefixed with a 0 contain information about meetings. |
Files prefixed with a 1 contain general information about the IETF. |
Working groups have individual directories under /ietf, named by their acronym, for charters and minutes (e.g., the /ietf/snmpv2 directory contains the charter and minutes for the SNMPv2 Working Group). Area reports and Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) session minutes are grouped into directories by meeting. The directory names are of the form yymmm (e.g., the /ietf/92mar directory contains the area summaries and BOF minutes for the March 1992 meeting). |
The Internet-Drafts directory contains draft documents that may eventually be submitted to the IESG and/or RFC Editor to be considered for publication as RFCs. Internet-Drafts have no formal status at all, and should be considered fluid documents that may change or be deleted at any time. They are indexed in the file 1id-abstracts.txt in the Internet-Drafts directory. Comments on the documents should be addressed to the author whose e-mail address is listed in the document.
For more information on writing and submitting an Internet-Draft, see the "Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts" document ( 1id-guidelines.txt in the /ietf directory). |
The IESG directory contains the minutes of IESG meetings. The minutes of IESG meetings are contained in files named with the pattern iesg.yy-mm-dd (e.g., the /iesg/iesg.92-11-10 file contains the minutes of the IESG meeting held on 10 November 1992). |
Proceedings
For each IETF meeting, a set of proceedings is published that contains area reports, charters of active working groups, minutes from working group and BOF sessions, and material from plenary presentations. The proceedings are published in CD-ROM and on-line formats. The CD-ROM version is available for a price of US$25. Hard copy versions of the proceedings are no longer printed, however volumes between the 29th - 55th IETF are available to attendees for a price of US$120. On-line proceedings are available to everyone via:
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Mailing Lists
Much of the daily work of the IETF is conducted on electronic mailing lists. There are discussion mailing lists for each of the working groups, as well as an IETF general discussion list, an IETF announcement list, and an Internet-Draft (I-D) announcement list. |
Discussion Lists |
Working Group Discussion ListsEach IETF working group maintains a general discussion mailing list where most of its work is conducted. Mail on the working group mailing lists is expected to be technically relevant to the working groups supported by those lists. |
Information on how to subscribe to an IETF working group mailing list, as well as the location of the mailing list archives, can be found on the Web page for that working group. Access to the Web pages for all active IETF working groups is available on the Active IETF Working Groups Web page (http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/wg-dir.html). |
The archives for many working groups are housed at the IETF Secretariat. In those cases where the archives are housed elsewhere, the Secretariat attempts to maintain duplicate sets of text archives, with the messages for each working group stored in a separate subdirectory. The IETF Secretariat text archives are located at ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf-mail-archive/. |
Several IETF Working Groups maintain http-based mailing list archives both at ietf.org and at other sites. Please visit WG-WEB-Mail.html for a list of these. |
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The IETF discussion list serves two purposes. It furthers the development and specification of Internet technology through discussion of technical issues, and it hosts discussions of IETF direction, policy, and procedures. As this is the most general IETF mailing list, considerable latitude is allowed with respect to topics discussed. Advertising, whether to solicit business or to promote employment opportunities, falls well outside the range of acceptable topics, as do discussions of a personal nature. |
The IETF discussion list is meant for initial discussion only. Discussions that fall within the area of any working group list (or other well established list) should be moved to that more specific list as soon as this is pointed out, unless the issue is one for which the working group needs wider input or direction. |
In addition to the topics noted above, appropriate postings include: |
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Email archives for the IETF discussion list are accessible via the Web at: |
The text archives for the mailing list are located at the following URL:
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To join the IETF general discussion list, send a request to: ietf-request@ietf.org and enter the word subscribe in the Subject line of the message and in the message body. |
To unsubscribe from the list, send a request as described above but containing unsubscribe in the Subject line and message body. |
Please do not attempt to subscribe or unsubscribe by sending mail directly to the list. Doing so will not result in the desired action but will irritate thousands of list subscribers. |
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Inappropriate postings to discussion lists include:
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The IETF Chair, the IETF Executive Director, or a sergeant-at-arms appointed by the Chair is empowered to restrict posting by a person or of a thread as they deem appropriate to limit abuse. Complaints regarding their decisions should be referred to the IAB. |
NOTE: The IETF discussion list is performing spam control according to the guidelines given in the IESG guidelines on spam control. |
A list of active spam prevention policies can be found here. |
If you have problems posting to the list, contact the IETF Mail Administrator. |
Announcement Lists
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