Session Date/Time: 11 Jul 2023 18:00

TOOLS

Summary

The TOOLS interim meeting covered ongoing infrastructure and tooling initiatives. Key topics included the accelerated rework of the Post-Confirm'd e mail alias tool to address Gmail delivery issues, the smooth but not entirely seamless migration of IETF domains to Cloudflare, and the archiving plan for older meeting wikis. Significant discussion focused on the IAB website transition to DataTracker and detailed instrumentation statistics for DataTracker's draft submission process, highlighting user behavior regarding API vs. UI submissions and XML vs. text formats. Progress on RPC tool modernization and a draft PR for xml2rfc Unicode support were also noted. A decision was made to cancel the upcoming August 8th TOOLS call due to lack of pressing agenda items.

Key Discussion Points

Chair and Group Mail Aliases (Post-Confirm'd e Rework)
- Issues with chair and group mail aliases failing for Gmail users are accelerating the rework of Post-Confirm'd e.
- Goals for the rework include better DKIM signature preservation and extending DMARC rewriting to draft and group aliases.
- The migration from Python 2 and Mailman Python 2 libraries to Python 3 is a significant effort, aiming to leverage more advanced mail handling libraries.
Domain Migration to Cloudflare
- All listed domains have been migrated to Cloudflare as registrar and primary DNS provider.
- The transition involved a period where zones were unsigned before being re-signed with a more modern algorithm, which went smoothly with minimal notice. Cloudflare did not support moving a signed zone at the time, which is being discussed with Cloudflare.
- Proxies were enabled for HTTP/HTTPS names, which unintentionally broke FTP and rsync access to bare domain names. Users are being guided to non-proxied names, and documentation is being improved.
- Proxying is being added to other domains (e.g., rfc-editor.org), with Cloudflare WAF rules being tuned for IETF and RFC Editor websites to avoid false positives (e.g., SQL injection attacks for RPC staff scripts).
- Restoring Digital Identity as secondary DNS provider is pending; an active ticket is open with Cloudflare, as this advertised feature is not yet working.
Archiving Older Meeting Wikis
- Efforts are underway to ingest older docu wikis (e.g., from the registration website) into the Internet Archive for preservation. This process is nearing completion.
- The private ISG Wiki, now in Wiki.js, is separate from this archiving effort, with relevant content having been migrated.
IAB Website Transition
- A temporary IAB website is available, with content migration (statements, appeals, minutes) into DataTracker in progress.
- The structure of appeals is irregular, requiring modeling decisions for DataTracker representation. Migration of appeals is expected mid-August.
- Content review and potential rewriting by the IAB is a significant factor in the timeline, which is estimated to extend into August/September for full reveal.
- Open GitHub issues related to the website and DataTracker are being tracked, with recognition that additional development may be needed post-content migration.
DataTracker Draft Submission Instrumentation
- Since IETF 116, the UI for draft submission uses an asynchronous processing backend.
- Statistics from ~1400 submissions since DataTracker 10.3.0 show:
  - 85% via UI, almost all others via asynchronous API.
  - A small number (9 unique drafts) still used the old synchronous API; submitters have been contacted.
  - XML submissions slightly outnumber Markdown submissions (55% vs 45%).
  - Approximately one-third of XML submissions are still in V2 format.
  - mmark usage is relatively low (55 submissions).
  - 153 text-only submissions were observed; reasons for these are unclear, though some users reportedly submitted text due to issues with XML grooming.
- Suggestions were made to improve error messages for XML submission failures (e.g., SVG tag issues) before the IETF 118 submission cycle.
- Discussion arose on ways to gather more insight into text-only submissions (e.g., optional comment field) and the adoption of tools like Martin's makefile/upload for XML submissions.
RPC Tool Modernization
- Work on RPC tool modernization may disrupt users of the V1 API due to major database structure changes. It is unlikely to be made backwards compatible.
- A planned rework of author information generation for drafts, initially aiming for a bulk rewrite, was adjusted. The new plan allows for on-demand regeneration with manual correction opportunities for appropriate parties, preserving existing Secretariat manual corrections. This feature is aimed for release post-IETF 117.
xml2rfc Unicode Support
- A draft pull request is available that allows Unicode in all elements for xml2rfc. Interested parties were invited to review and test.

Decisions and Action Items

Decision: The August 8th TOOLS call will be cancelled, as no strong desire to hold it was expressed.
Action Item: Jennifer to continue following up with individuals submitting drafts via the deprecated synchronous API.
Action Item: Improve the clarity and helpfulness of error messages returned during draft submission failures (target: before IETF 118 submission cycle).
Action Item: Explore mechanisms to gather more data on why users submit text-only drafts (e.g., via a voluntary comment field in the submission form).
Action Item: Cindy to double-check the archive status of the old private ISG Wiki to ensure all relevant content has been preserved/migrated.

Next Steps

Continue the accelerated rework and deployment of Post-Confirm'd e.
Resolve the issue with Cloudflare and Digital Identity for secondary DNS services.
Finalize the archiving of older meeting wikis into the Internet Archive.
Continue migration of IAB website content to DataTracker and manage IAB review/rewriting process.
Further analyze DataTracker submission instrumentation data to understand user behaviors and tool adoption.
Proceed with RPC tool modernization, noting potential V1 API disruption and implementing the revised author information regeneration mechanism.
Discuss the implications of RPC tool modernization at the next TOOLS meeting.
Participants encouraged to discuss further data mining ideas for submission statistics at IETF 117 or code sprints.
The next regular TOOLS meeting will be held after IETF 117, with the August 8th interim being cancelled.