Session Date/Time: 28 May 2026 14:30
Karen O'Donoghue: And since it's time, we will go ahead and get started.
This is the... I didn't actually send that. Okay, there we go. I hit send now.
So, this is the IETF NTP Working Group. This is an official meeting of the IETF.
This is the Note Well for the IETF. These are the rules and processes by which we operate. All of the details are available in these various reference documents. If you have any questions, feel free to talk to your co-chairs, which is Dieter or myself, or to our Area Director, or any of the Area Directors. We do have a new Area Director. Erik Kline completed six years of service in March, and we have a new Area Director. So, we should welcome him, though he's not actually on the call, but that's okay.
Dieter will be helping with the minutes. Feel free to add anything into them that you would like represented. And we have also been making some use of Ekco's AI version of the minutes as well, which have been helpful. There may be errors, so it's in your best interest to double-check them.
As I mentioned, we have a short meeting today. This is the agenda. Is there any agenda bashing?
Nope. Excellent.
So, we have two working group documents that are still with the RFC Editor. So they have been approved by the IESG and are in the final processes of editing. Those are the NTP over PTP document and the Rough Time document. So, hopefully, they will be coming out shortly.
I don't know if anybody saw the announcement, but there is actually also a new RFC Editor website. So, if you are interested in exploring the updated RFC Editor website, I encourage you to do so.
The next document is [draft-ietf-ntp-ntpv5]. We did have a virtual meeting a month ago. Our plan for setting up these meetings was to keep work moving at a little bit brisker pace. I still owe the consensus calls on the four issues that were identified last time. And I will ask Tal if you have any other updates, any progress has been made since the last meeting.
Tal Mizrahi: Uh, not from my side, and I'm not aware that there was anything from Miroslav, either. I think we did talk in the last meeting about possibly having consensus calls, and we wanted to wait until we have these consensus calls until we make the changes that we talked about. So, yeah.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah, that's exactly right, and we need to do those consensus calls. So, hopefully, Dieter and I will work on that in the near future. I was supposed to do it over the last couple of weeks, and it did not get done.
So, I would also encourage anybody new on the call or anybody on the call to please review that document, submit issues on GitHub, and hopefully we can get this wrapped up in the relatively near future.
The second document that we have for work is the [draft-ietf-ntp-nts-for-ptp]. I know a fair amount of progress is being made in the IEEE 1588 Working Group on the complementary document for this. IEEE 1588 is having a face-to-face meeting next week. I may be a bit optimistic, but I think we might be getting close to... I'm hoping that maybe by the end of the summer, we'll be able to do a first working group ballot over there. Martin, do you want to speak to the status of the document here?
Martin Langer: Currently, I also have no further progress on this document. So, currently, we're waiting for, yeah, so the work at IEEE. And I also think doing the face-to-face meeting, but after the face-to-face meeting, we have more progress and it seems pretty good, actually. So I guess if we have the document ready at IEEE, then I can work on NTS for PTP again and, yeah, finish it up.
Karen O'Donoghue: Finish it up. Excellent. For anybody who's not participating actively in the 1588 Working Group, I do have permission to give access, if people ask me for them, to those documents. So, if anybody wants to see the state of the work as it is in 1588, I'm not allowed to post it publicly, but I am allowed to send it to specific people who are asking for the purposes of review and coordination between the two working groups. So, if you send Dieter or myself an email, we can send you that document.
And the final document on our... Oh, I just saw that I didn't update this agenda for this slide. There is an item on here for Hackathon as well, in the agenda that I managed to not put on the slides, but we'll get to that under any other business.
The third document is the [draft-ietf-ntp-nts-keyexchange-pool] document. We, at our last call, we had a quick discussion about doing the early IANA allocation request. That is, and you will have seen a consensus call for that on the mailing list, there was no opposition to doing it. And I've asked the new Area Director to approve it and move forward with that. He has been travelling, so I haven't quite gotten a response yet, but we should have that in the pipeline relatively soon.
I also note that there's been a fair amount of discussion on the [draft-ietf-ntp-nts-keyexchange-pool] document or, and on the mailing list recently. David, did you want to give any updates with respect to that?
David Venhoek: Um, yeah, so there's been some discussion, primarily around the alternative approaches. Um, I... We're we're almost ready to announce that we're publicly experimenting with the SRV record approach, uh, that has been talked about in the past. Um, through the process of making that we've run into a few of the more subtleties that that you run into when you think about NTS pools, uh, for anyone that's interested in that. I I refer to the discussions on the mailing list. Um, but suffice to say there's some... There's some subtleties to shoot yourself in the foot and actually make the whole NTS addition relatively uh relatively weak, uh, if you go into SRV-based pools and don't carefully consider how you do things like DNSSEC validation and record generation. Um, beyond that, uh, the document as it stands, uh, I'm planning to add a little bit more background on how the individual records are supposed to be used uh and how they fit into the ecosystem with with the kind of pool that they're designed for. Um, I'm I'm I think that for now is is where we stand. Um, think once that's there, we could do another round of review of this document.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay. Um, did you have a... You said once that's there, it'd be good to do another round of review. Do you have an estimated timeline for that?
David Venhoek: I hope to have it before the next IETF and before uh document submission closes for the next IETF. Um, but at this point, I can't be more concrete than that. Uh, and and I can't even guarantee that I'm going to make that deadline because it's also a bit busy with other stuff. Um, I do have one question, by the way, about the early allocation process. Do we have any idea what the timeline of that is roughly going to be once the Area Director has said yes or no?
Karen O'Donoghue: Um, I think it's pretty quick. Um, but I don't have a good estimate for it. I I mean, IANA generally turns things around really quickly. Um, and I'm expecting there not to be any opposition from the designated experts. So, I would say maybe two to four weeks, but maybe hopefully closer to two. Um, is that an adequate answer?
David Venhoek: Uh, that's an answer we can plan around. Yes. Thank you.
Karen O'Donoghue: Um, plan lightly, though. Um, schedule expectations are not exactly solid these days.
Um, all right, so that brings us to the end of our three independent, uh, three current work items. We have no independent submissions. Uh, the one item that should be on the agenda that I didn't actually put is the, uh... We are planning a Hackathon in conjunction with IETF 126. Uh, so I kind of wanted people to start putting that on their calendars now. Uh, IETF 126 is the week of July 20th. Uh, and the Hackathon will be the, uh, 18th and 19th, the weekend before. Um, and then for those who stay, there's usually some continuing space for people to continue working together if they wish uh into the week, but the the primary Hackathon event itself uh will be the 18th and 19th. We'll put in a meeting request for the NTP Working Group meeting. Uh, I can't guarantee it, but I usually ask if possible we could be earlier in the week. Um, because a number of the people that come for NTP don't necessarily come for, um, all of the rest of the, uh, IETF activities.
I do want to remind people the early registration... Hackathon itself is free, registration for the IETF, of course, is not. Um, and I had the dates here, but I have, uh... Let's see. Hold on one second. Important dates and deadlines. Um, okay, June 1st. I knew it was coming up pretty soon. The the super early cut-off is June 1st. I'm sorry, Tal, go ahead.
Tal Mizrahi: Uh, I wonder if we know how many people are going to, uh, attend the Hackathon in person. Or, or some, some of the people will probably participate remotely, but, uh, I wonder if people are actually going to be there.
Karen O'Donoghue: Go ahead, David.
David Venhoek: Uh, yeah. So, me and at least one other colleague are going to be there for the Hackathon and probably the rest of the week, uh, though I can't promise the second part. Um, we will be focusing primarily on NTPv5 and pool stuff.
Karen O'Donoghue: All right. Um, I'm not not to put you on the spot, Martin, but of course I I am putting you on spot. Do you know yet if you're planning on coming to work on the NTS for PTP?
Martin Langer: I guess this time I'm not available for the next IETF.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay. Um, we will allow some remote participation. Um, I see Sarah's on the call. I know that she's participated uh remotely previously. Um, and Miroslav, uh, may be available as well. Um, and we'll be collecting, um... We'll be trying to do a little bit better job of getting the word out, see if we can get a few more people there, but usually, it's usually, you know, four to six people, uh, including Dieter and myself, um, when we've done this in the past, plus whoever we might have online. Um, so, and occasionally we get somebody completely random, uh, that we weren't expecting, um, who's who's interested in in time in general, so, um... Anyway, uh, so, the super early registration cut-off is uh June 1st. And so if you are planning on coming in person, you really don't want to miss that date. Um, for people that plan to attend the IETF remotely, I do want to remind you of the, uh, fee waivers if you're with an organization that can't really justify the expense. Um, and, uh, other than that, Dieter and I will work on getting the description up on the Hackathon wiki, um, and we'll send some of those details out on the mailing list.
I... The last, any other business I have is: as I mentioned, we were trying to schedule virtual interims a little bit more frequently so that we kept the work moving. Um, so, there would be a possibility of doing a short virtual interim like this one, um, possibly the week of the 29th of June into the July 3rd, um, if that, um... That would be three weeks before the IETF, um, so, it's it's cutting it a little bit close to the IETF. Um, the final draft cut-off is is July 6th. Um, so, if we thought we could get some productive conversation on the consensus calls, then we could do a virtual interim. Otherwise, we could, uh, wait until the meeting itself. Um, and so with that, I would kind of ask Tal: would you think that would be beneficial to have that conversation or not?
Tal Mizrahi: I'm sorry, did you ask me?
Karen O'Donoghue: Uh, yes, sorry. In particular, we need to have the we need to have the those four issues addressed on the mailing list.
Tal Mizrahi: Right.
Karen O'Donoghue: And, uh, we could go ahead and put the meeting on the calendar and cancel it if there's not, um... If it if it resolves itself easily on the mailing list, if there's not going to be any benefit to having any sort of a a conversation prior to the Internet-Draft deadline.
Tal Mizrahi: Yeah, I I think ideally, uh, if we could have that conversation in the next two weeks, uh, we might be able to, uh, post an updated version before the IETF meeting. Um, so, yeah, theoretically, it's possible. Uh, maybe the discussion will take longer, but we can try to start the discussion and see how it goes.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay. Is there any benefit to having a short virtual interim the last week of June, first week of July? That 29th to the 3rd?
Tal Mizrahi: Um, I'm not sure it's necessary. In my opinion, I I don't think, uh, it's necessary because the IETF meeting is already pretty close. Yeah. And we'll probably want, we probably want to to have these discussions on the mailing list. That's, that's... That should allow us to make progress.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah. Yeah, that that should that that is basically the dilemma that I that I was thinking about. It didn't necessarily make sense to have one, but I also feel like if I don't have deadlines looming, we don't seem to make progress. So, if you all can help me keep us moving, um, that would be great. Um, reminders sent to the chairs never go amiss. So, um, all right. With that, is there any other business?
All right. Thank you, everyone, very much for, uh, showing up today. And as I did say, I did expect it to be a very short call, so, um, with that, I'll see you on the mailing list.
And Dieter, can you hang out for one second?
Dieter Sibold: Yes.
Karen O'Donoghue: All right, let's see.
I'm going to switch to Zoom. I'll send you a a Zoom link in, uh, Slack, okay?
Dieter Sibold: Okay.
Karen O'Donoghue: Bye.
Dieter Sibold: Bye.