Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points BOF (capwap) Friday, July 18 at 0900-1130 ============================= CHAIRS: Dorothy Stanley (dstanley@agere.com) James Kempf (kempf@docomolabs-usa.com) AGENDA: Intro and Agenda Bashing (5 min) LWAPP (Pat Calhoun) (10 min) SNMP (Marcus Brunner) (10 min) Accesss Point Discovery (Inderpreet Singh) (10 min). Security and Certificate Provisioning (David Molnar) (10 min) Discussion (40 min) Summary and Next Steps (10 min) FULL DESCRIPTION: Conventional IETF wisdom has it that wireless access points for non-provisioned wireless media are no more than simple Layer 2 bridges that transparently forward packets between the wired and wireless links. While this is indeed their primary function, in reality, higher layer functions have been gradually migrating into such access points. An example is network access server functionality. Managing this functionality, its interaction between access points, and between access points and access routers has become increasingly difficult. Because some of the functions involve exchange of Layer 2 information, IETF has traditionally maintained that it is "Not Our Problem". On the other hand, because many of the functions either use or provide services with a Layer 3 component, the relevant Layer 2 standardization bodies (such as IEEE for 802.11) have been reluctant to step forward and own the problem either. Recently, next generation 802.11 network infrastructure (also referred to as WLAN switches) have seen significant interest in the market. Several companies, both startups and incumbents in the WLAN space, have announced, or are shipping products. Most of these products have a similar architecture which simplifies the access points, but does not remove the problem of managing the interaction with the IP network. Given the interest in the market for such products, there is no doubt that standardizing the interface between the AP and the controller (or WLAN switch) would benefit the Internet community. Would defining a new Layer 2 independent protocol to manage wireless access points both dynamically and statically help? Can existing IETF solutions contribute, and, if so, is there any Layer 2 independent work that IETF might do to adapt those solutions to the problem space? Wireless access points also have additional security needs that are ill met by regarding them as simple Layer 2 bridges. Because such access points are easy to deploy by design, security provisioning is difficult to achieve. How does the network provider's router verify that a particular access point is authorized to be on the network? Wireless access points are also being called upon to provide increasingly more complex security for hosts, approaching that provided by the highly provisioned wireless media in cellular networks. Can the implementation of these functions be simplified by centralizing the intelligence and distributing the RF interfaces? In this BOF, we will discuss these issues and attempt to come to some conclusions about what IETF might or might not do to help address the problem. READING LIST: Lightweight Access Point Protocol http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-calhoun-seamoby-lwapp-02.txt MAILING LIST: List: lwapp@frascone.com Subscribe: lwapp-request@frascone.com Body: subscribe in Subject line Archive: http://mail.frascone.com/pipermail/public/lwapp/