2.1.11 Telnet TN3270 Enhancements (tn3270e)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 41st IETF Meeting in Los Angeles, California. It may now be out-of-date. Last Modified: 11-Mar-98

Chair(s):

Ed Bailey <elbailey@us.ibm.com>
Michael Boe <mboe@cisco.com>

Applications Area Director(s):

Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
Harald Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no>

Applications Area Advisor:

Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>

Technical Advisor(s):

Robert Moskowitz <rgm-ietf@htt-consult.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion:tn3270e@list.nih.gov
To Subscribe: listserv@list.nih.gov
In Body: sub tn3270e <first_name> <last_name
Archive: listserv@list.nih.gov

Description of Working Group:

Present specifications for access to 3270 and 5250 based applications over TCP/IP require improvement to become more commercially viable. Security, Service Location, Response Time, and Session Balancing are improvement examples.

The WG will drive to update and extend the standards specifications proposed in rfc1647 and rfc1205 so that they fully support 3270 and 5250 style access to host (S/390 and AS/400) applications respectively in today's environments.

Consideration will be given to work already in progress on protocols for accessing 3270 and 5250 based applications over TCP/IP.

Three protocol documents will be produced.

Deliverables

1. A revised version of rfc1647 (tn3270e) including clarifications of the protocol, and security considerations. The revised rfc1647 will be submitted to the IESG for advancement of the tn3270e protocol to draft standard status. Currently it is a proposed standard.

2. A new standards track document defining options for the tn3270e protocol. Such options are: IPDS printing, response time monitoring, error reporting, session balancing, service location, and security.

3. A new standards track document defining enhancements to the tn5250 protocol. This new protocol will be called tn5250e. This is not Display Station Passthrubut printing, LU assignment, service location, and security.

Goals and Milestones:

Apr 97

  

Discuss scope of initial tn5250ec enhancements at IETF session.

Apr 97

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Propose a list of initial enhancements on listsrv for review.

Apr 97

  

Goal 1 revised tn3270e (rfc1647) Conduct interoperability testing.

Apr 97

  

Discuss scope of initial tn3270e enhancements at IETF session.

Apr 97

  

Propose a list of initial TN5250e enhancements on listsrv for review.

May 97

  

Goal 1 revised tn3270e (rfc1647) Publish Internet-Draft and issue Working Group Last Call.

Jun 97

  

Goal 1 revised tn3270e (rfc1647) Incorporate any revisions and publish Internet-Draft.

Jun 97

  

Goal 1 revised tn3270e (rfc1647) Submit to IESG for consideration for Proposed Standard.

Aug 97

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Resolve issues with initial enhancements using the listsrv.

Aug 97

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Resolve issues with initial enhancements using the listsrv.

Sep 97

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Issue initial draft of new proposed rfc to listsrv for review.

Sep 97

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Issue initial draft of new proposed rfc to listsrv for review.

Nov 97

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Incorporate comments and publish proposed rfc for implementation.

Nov 97

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Incorporate comments and publish proposed rfc for implementation.

Apr 98

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Conduct initial interoperability testing.

Apr 98

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Conduct initial interoperability testing.

Jun 98

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Gather operational experience from implementers.

Jun 98

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Gather operational experience from implementers.

Aug 98

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Publish Internet-Draft and issue Working Group Last Call.

Aug 98

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Publish Internet-Draft and issue Working Group Last Call.

Oct 98

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Submit to IESG for consideration for Proposed Standard.

Oct 98

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Submit to IESG for consideration for Proposed Standard.

Oct 98

  

Goal 3 tn5250e Incorporate any revisions and publish Internet-Draft.

Oct 98

  

Goal 2 tn3270e new options Incorporate any revisions and publish Internet-Draft.

Internet-Drafts:

Request For Comments:

RFC

Status

Title

 

RFC1576

 

TN3270 Current Practices

RFC1646

 

TN3270 Extensions for LUname and Printer Selection

RFC1647

PS

TN3270 Enhancements

Current Meeting Report

Minutes of the Telnet TN3270 Enhancements (tn3270e) Working Group

Reported by Ed Bailey <elbailey@us.ibm.com>

I. Introduction/Old Business

RFC1647 status: IESG received statement of interoperability, and completed Last Call for Draft Standard status.

II. TN3270e MIB

The two drafts are completing WG Last Call now. A brief summary of the technical changes
resulting from Randy Presuhn's review.

There are no changes to the Response Time MIB that would qualify as technical: lots of editorial clarifications, a few cases where specific values are identified for exception cases, but nothing that would affect the mainline code in an implementation.

For the TN3270E Configuration MIB, there are four technical changes; items 2 and 3 are the ones I identified in the WG meeting. In addition, there are the same sorts of non-technical changes I listed above for the Response Time MIB. Here are the technical changes for the Configuration MIB:

1. A new object reporting a TN3270E server's last activation time will be added to the Tn3270eSrvrConfTable. This object will have the syntax DateAndTime, and will serve to define the epoch relative to which the TimeStamp field in the IANATn3270eLogData TC and the TCP connection up time object described below are defined.
2. A new object recording the time a TCP connection came up will be added to the Tn3270eTcpConnTable. This object will have the syntax TimeTicks, relative to the epoch defined by the server last activation object mentioned above. It will serve as the discontinuity indicator for the two counters that appear in the Tn3270eTcpConnTable.
3. Two new states will be added to the tn3270eSrvrConfOperStatus object. The object will now contain the following four states:

up(1) - the server is active and accepting new client connections

down(2) - the server is not active

busy(3) - the server is active, but is not accepting new client connections because it lacks the resources to do so

shuttingDown(4) - the server is active, but is not accepting new client connections because it is in the process of performing a graceful shutdown

4. The descriptive text for the tn3270eSrvrStatsTable will specify that an implementation may, for a given TN3270E server, have EITHER a single global entry for the entire server, or separate entries per port / local address, but not both.

A quick review with IANA was requested to verify their considerations.

III. Security

Need to assign START TLS option with IANA

A new draft will be published to the list for review.

IV. TN3270 Service Location

SRVLOC protocol:

Changes associated with version 2 of SRVLOC have resulted in a more local orientation. Wide Area Service Location (WASRV) will be focused on non-local configurations.

At this point, implementations have been based upon version 1. The work group still considers SRVLOC to be applicable for locating a particular server.

As for load balancing, there are other choices such as DNS available that need to be positioned against SRVLOC for this use.

The initial draft based upon version 1 of SRVLOC will be available in May.

V. TN5250 Enhancements

First draft was published and received good comments from the list. The IBM implementation was presented with the discussion the considerations for implementing the enhancements in clients.

A revision of the draft will be issued with additions for TLS and SLP.

Ed Bailey, WG Chair
elbailey@us.ibm.com

Slides

None Received

Attendees List

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