Session Date/Time: 08 Mar 2022 19:00

TOOLS

Summary

The TOOLS Working Group discussed progress on several critical infrastructure projects, including the near completion of the Subversion and Trac to GitHub migration, the impending shutdown of tools.ietf.org, and significant updates to the Data Tracker. Key points of discussion included preparations for IETF 113, ongoing security reviews, and the strategy for handling legacy systems. A major decision was made to correct an unintentional redirect issue with Jabber log links, and the next meeting schedule was affirmed despite upcoming holidays.

Key Discussion Points

IETF 113 Preparations:
- Draft Submission Dates: The proposal to integrate important dates for draft submissions into the Data Tracker for IETF 113 was deemed impractical for this meeting. It will be correctly implemented for IETF 114, following ISG review.
- WG Chair Presence: The Secretariat requires information on Working Groups without a physically present chair in Vienna to provide in-person support. A website tracking this information has been updated. The TOOLS WG discussed the need to identify delegates for queue management in cases where no designated chairs (remote or in-person) can drive a meeting.
RFC in Time-Inhibited (TI) Status: An RFC is currently in TI status due to Weezy print page break issues, which is being treated as a critical issue. Hackish workarounds are under consideration, and feedback from Sandy and John is awaited to determine if a fix warrants publication delay or if the RFC should be published as is.
New Server and Mailing List Migration: The development team will begin assisting with testing of the new server shortly after IETF 113.
Subversion and Trac Conversion to GitHub:
- The conversion is largely complete, with Ribose assisting in cleaning up remaining edge cases.
- A significant issue was the loss of ticket attachments from early 2021 for xml2rfc and ietfdb Trac instances. These issues will be flagged, and original providers may be contacted to recreate attachments if needed.
- Repositories are being adapted for new GitHub contribution mechanisms, with xml2rfc serving as a prototype, and Data Tracker and Mail Archive to follow.
- Legacy Trac Instances: A plan is forming to create Docker containers of old Trac and SVN repositories, posting them as GitHub packages for historical reference, and discontinuing service from track.ietf.org. WG wikis will be migrated to Wiki.js via crowdsourcing.
Moving Services off tools.ietf.org:
- The bibxml service remains the "long pole" due to outstanding issues Ribose is fixing.
- Deployment of bibxml on IETF infrastructure is unlikely before IETF 113, delaying the ultimate shutdown and redirection of tools.ietf.org.
- bap and dailydose will not have immediate replacements but will be pursued later.
Zulip Rollout: Working groups can sign up for Zulip streams, with an announcement planned for today. Groups responding by next Tuesday will have streams enabled for IETF 113. After the meeting, all remaining WGs will receive streams by default.
Web Analytics: Detailed analytics will remain restricted to core operations. Anonymized periodic reports will be made available to stakeholders like the Yang Catalog community.
Data Tracker Updates:
- One release occurred, focused on the GitHub transition. Future releases will adhere more closely to semantic versioning.
- Cloudflare: The Web Application Firewall was disabled for submit and api endpoints due to false positives blocking Internet Draft submissions. Re-enabling will be a slow process to identify non-blocking rules.
- Security: Password reset link validity was reduced and made invalid after condition changes following a vulnerability report. Rate limiting will be generally applied to Data Tracker requests in response to another report.
- Web Stack: Data Tracker now uses Nginx and Gunicorn, resulting in a slight speed-up and anticipated better performance during IETF meetings. off.ietf.org will migrate post-meeting.
- Upcoming Work: Focus on correctly capturing session attendance (for NomCom eligibility), making all timestamps time zone aware, and a major "facelift" to migrate from Bootstrap 3 to Bootstrap 5. A test instance for the Bootstrap 5 branch is expected soon.
Mail Archiving / Registration System: Many of the 135 outstanding tickets are blocked awaiting authoritative declarations on grammar changes related to the 799-style best process, rather than a lack of coding resources.
Yang Catalog: Pantheon continues executing new feature development, including a Yang extension for schema ID.
Security Reviews:
- Data Tracker: Re-testing with zx is planned to provide an updated, easier-to-frame report.
- Database Systems: Sirius Open Source initiated a review, starting with Data Tracker. Re-enabling the performance schema had negligible impact.
- Remaining Web Services: Statement of Work with zx for penetration testing is being refined, considering timing conflicts with the ietfa server refresh.
Mailman 3: Exploration on the sandbox remains resource-constrained and is behind other transitions.
RFC Editor Model Transition: Preparation is underway for quick setup of new groups (RSLAG, RSAB, RPC) and roles within a repurposed RFC Editor Group container once the model is approved. Role management will occur via support tickets.
Jabber Logs Redirect Issue: When clicking on Jabber log links from the Data Tracker, users are redirected to a general group chat page on www.ietf.org instead of directly to the logs. Initial investigation suggests this is a 404-style error redirect due to a missing path segment (/jabber) in the Data Tracker links, not an intentional policy.

Decisions and Action Items

Decision: The proposal to integrate important draft submission dates into the Data Tracker will be done correctly for IETF 114, not for IETF 113.
Action Item: Robert (Chair) will coordinate with Glenn to schedule the final cut-over for the Author Tools production deployment.
Action Item: Alexa will add instructions to the Zulip availability announcement on how working groups can request a Zulip stream (e.g., via a support ticket).
Action Item: The TOOLS WG will work out details for periodic, anonymized web analytics reports to be made available to stakeholders.
Action Item: The Data Tracker team will update GitHub ticket labels for Mail Archiving / Registration System to better indicate status (e.g., "waiting on 799-bis," "problem understanding").
Decision: The Jabber log links in the Data Tracker will be corrected to point directly to the logs (by adding the /jabber path segment), as the current redirect appears to be an unintentional error rather than a policy.
Action Item: Lars will open an issue to track the change for the Jabber log links in the Data Tracker.
Decision: The next TOOLS WG meeting on April 12th will remain as scheduled, allowing for coordination on items like the IETFA server cut-over, despite upcoming holidays/spring break for some participants.

Next Steps

Continue testing of the new server and progress with the Mail Archive and Data Tracker GitHub migrations.
Further investigate and address the RFC page break issue to resolve the TI status.
Complete the bibxml service deployment to enable the shutdown of tools.ietf.org.
Roll out Zulip streams for all remaining working groups after IETF 113.
Proceed with Data Tracker enhancements, including the Bootstrap 5 facelift, session attendance capture, and timestamp timezone awareness.
Continue refining the SOW for broader security penetration testing while coordinating with ietfa refresh timing.
Prepare for the RFC Editor model transition by adding groups and roles.
IETF 113 Code Sprint will focus on Data Tracker Bootstrap 5 development.