Let's get moving on NTS

[Eric S. Raymond]

This email is an attempt to bring together two different discussion
threads, one that I've been having with Hal Murray via private email and one
on signal chat.

We have our SOW from Cisco.  It's time to get serious about
implementing NTS.

Everybody who hasn't hasn't should read the NTS draft:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ntp-using-nts-for-ntp

But that's not enough by itself.  Before diving into code, we need to
specify what data flows between what components in operation, and how
each is expected to react.  The Signal doscussion revealed that we do
not yet have a shared understanding of these things.  Gary, for
example, thinks we need bidirectional management protocols.  Do we?

I have started a new document, devel/nts.adoc, which is intended to
become internal documentation of our implementation.

What we need is to fill in transaction steps.  Presumably the dance
starts with Alpha requesting a secure time feed from Charlie. For now,
forget details like packet formats and port numbers, we'll add those
later either explicitly or by reference to the RFC.  What semantic
things need to be in that request?

The reason I'm not trying to write down all this myself is in the
signal discussion several smart people were visibly confused about
what data needed to be going where; this made me nervous that, alone,
I might wander off into a cul-de-sac that doesn't match the actual
requirements.

So I think my job for the next little while is is to watch you guys
write down transactions and argue about them while I ask stupid
questions.

Let the games begin!
--
						>>esr>>