Markdown Version | Session Recording

Session Date/Time: 23 Oct 2025 14:00

IOTDIR

Summary

This interim meeting of the IoT Directorate (IOTDIR) focused on providing updates from various IETF Working Groups (WGs) and Research Groups (RGs) relevant to the Internet of Things. Participants shared progress on active drafts, upcoming interim and IETF 124 Montreal meetings, new document adoptions, and rechartering efforts. The importance of directorate reviews for draft progression was also highlighted.

Key Discussion Points

IOTDIR Review Process

• The chair emphasized the importance of IOTDIR members accepting review assignments.
• Reviewers are not expected to be experts on the specific draft, but to provide a knowledgeable perspective.
• Members unable to perform a review are kindly asked to decline promptly to allow re-assignment.

Working Group Updates

6Lo (IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks)

• RFC Editor Queue:
  • IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Prefix Registration
  • Fixing the C flag in EARO
• Working Group Documents in Progress:
  • Path-Aware Semantic Addressing (PASA) for LLNs: Ready for ASG submission, pending normative reference draft (Generic Address Assignment Option - GAO) reaching the same stage.
  • Generic Address Assignment Option (GAO): Shepherd review available, update expected, followed by shepherd write-up.
  • Transmission of SCHC Complex Packets over 15.4 Networks: Updated, depends on the evolving SCHC Architecture draft.
  • Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Short-Range Optical Wireless Communications (OWC): Updated.
• Individual Drafts:
  • Security Considerations for IPv6 over OWC: Authors plan to integrate content into the main IPv6 over OWC draft.
  • 00 Submission (obsoleting RFC 8163): Transmission of IPv6 over Multi-drop Serial Bus Token Passing (MSTP), applying fixes and terminology updates based on RFC 8163.

ACE (Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments)

• No update provided during the meeting.

SDF (Semantic Definition Format for IoT)

• Interim Meeting: Next Wednesday, October 29th.
• IETF 124 Montreal: Two one-hour in-person sessions planned.
• Active Working Group Documents:
  • SDF Non-Affordance: Standard track, recently adopted.
  • How to Use SDF for Digital Twins: Informational, recently adopted.
  • SDF Protocol Mapping: Spawn-off of NIPSE, recently adopted, provides a registry for protocol bindings for SDF models.
  • NIPSE: Progressing well, awaiting completion of SDF Protocol Mapping.
  • SDF Type Link: Recently adopted, specifies links in SDF models.
• RFC Editor Queue:
  • SDF in ISG: At the HLP 48 stage.
• Individual/New Drafts:
  • SDF Compact: For compacting SDF information.
  • API Translation using SDF: For translating APIs (source A to source B).
  • Instance Information: Tightly coupled with SDF non-affordance information.
  • SDF Mapping.

CBOR (Concise Binary Object Representation)

• Focus: Interims and upcoming meeting focused on unstucking three long-standing documents.
• Highest Priority:
  • Deterministic Encoding: Significant discussion, unclear consensus on potential changes to CBOR.
• More Mature Topics:
  • Diagnostic Implementation: Used in other documents.
  • CBOR-Packed for In-Place Consumable Data: For compressed-ish data.

CoRE (Constrained RESTful Environments)

• Documents Approved/Published:
  • One document approved for publication, now in O48 stage, assigned RFC 9876.
  • DNS over CoAP: Approved for publication as a Proposed Standard.
  • Companion Informational Document for ALPN ID for CoAP over DTLS: Approved for publication.
• Documents in ISG Evaluation (completed WG Last Call):
  • Constrained Resource Identifier (CRIS).
  • Two foundational documents for Group Communication for CoAP (with security).
• Documents Completed WG Plus Call:
  • YANG SitPen (in CoRE Conf cluster) expected to proceed soon.
• Newly Adopted Working Group Documents:
  • CoAP Transported over the Bundle Protocol.
  • New CoAP Option for Abbreviating Well-Known URI Parts.
  • Restoring Cacheability of CoAP Responses Protected with OSCORE End-to-End.
• Ongoing Activities:
  • Monitoring performance of CoAP traffic.
  • Corrections and clarifications for CoAP (mostly via GitHub issues).
  • Advancing and splitting work on group communication for responses over multicast (separating proxy use).
  • Lightweight protocol for updating key material for OSCORE.
  • New proposal for obfuscating more information in OSCORE.
  • Recent progress on transporting CoAP messages over Bluetooth.
• IETF 124 Montreal: Two-hour session planned at the end of the week.
• Interim Meetings: Resume after Montreal, with a one-off in December, then proper sessions from mid-January.

DICE (Deterministic Identity for Constrained Entities)

• No update provided during the meeting.

DETNET (Deterministic Networking)

• No update provided during the meeting.

EOTOps (Energy-constrained IoT Operations)

• No update provided during the meeting.

LAKE (Lightweight Authenticated Key Exchange)

• IETF 124 Montreal: One hour 30-minute session.
• Working Group Documents: Four out of five adopted documents have been updated and will be presented in Montreal.
• Rechartering Effort: Near completion, seeking consensus on the mailing list.
  • Substantial changes include quantum resilience solutions, which were previously not explicitly included.
  • Significant upcoming work on post-quantum solutions.
• New Work: Four novel works from different groups since last IETF, two new Internet Drafts for Montreal (three documents updated).

LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Networks)

• No update provided during the meeting.
• Note from Carsten: RFC 728 bis (terminology for constrained devices), around since early 2010s, has been revised and is picking up speed. Reviewers are active, and an improved version is expected for Montreal.

ROLL (Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks)

• Interim Meeting: One recently held.
• IETF 124 Montreal: No meeting planned.
• Key Drafts:
  • Enrollment Priority: In working group last call, modifications being merged with use case.
  • NNCI Extension: In progress.

SCHC (Static Context Header Compression and fragmentation for CoAP over LPWAN)

• Interim Meetings: Two held since Madrid.
• Key Discussions:
  • SCHC Architecture: Being discussed, with some discussions around concepts and terminology.
  • Protocol Numbers: Document progressing to request EtherType, IP protocol number, or UDP ports to identify SCHC data units.
  • RFC 8824 Update Draft: Progress made.
• IETF 124 Montreal: Session planned.

SKIM (Self-managed Key Infrastructure for IoT)

• No update provided during the meeting.

SUIT (Software Updates for IoT)

• Interim Meeting: One held.
• IETF 124 Montreal: Meeting planned.
• Key Drafts:
  • One draft in telechat this week.
  • One draft awaiting AD evaluation.

TIPS (Trust and Identity in Pervasive Spaces)

• No update provided during the meeting.

Research Group Updates

Instusing (Internet of Things Semantic Interoperability Research Group)

• Interim Meeting: Held 10 days prior on "Composable Code" – how software on constrained devices is composed from components from different provenances (containerization, mobile code, virtual machines). Videos available on YouTube.
• IETF 124 Montreal: Face-to-face side meeting on Monday morning at 8 AM for informal discussion (not a formal RG meeting).
• Future Work:
  • Exploring interaction between IoT technologies and AI agent interaction.
  • Identifying gaps in discovery protocols to make information more useful for AI agents.
  • Planned discussions in Montreal with other AI-focused groups for cross-pollination.

New Planned Activities

• No new planned activities were presented by participants.

Other SDOs

• No information on other SDOs was presented.

Decisions and Action Items

• IOTDIR Members: Kindly requested to accept review assignments and decline promptly if unable to complete them.
• LAKE WG: Continue seeking consensus on the mailing list for the rechartering effort, specifically regarding the inclusion of quantum resilience solutions.

Next Steps

• IETF 124 Montreal: Many WGs (SDF, CoRE, LAKE, SCHC, SUIT) have sessions planned. The Instusing RG will hold a side meeting.
• Post-Montreal: Several WGs (CoRE, SDF) plan to resume interim meetings.
• LAKE WG: Progress work on post-quantum solutions within the context of the rechartering.
• Instusing RG: Engage with other AI-focused groups in Montreal to explore collaboration on IoT/AI agent interaction.