1. Philip J. Nesser II Nesser & Nesser Consulting
IETF Activities on Y2K North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) May 25, 1999
Philip J. Nesser II
Nesser & Nesser Consulting

2. © Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999
Project Goals
To Investigate All Internet Protocols Documented in the RFC Series
Identify any Y2K issues
Provide feedback to relevant communities
Finish Preliminary Work By Summer 1998
Publish Final Report, as an RFC, By Early 1999
May 25, 1999
© Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999

3. © Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999
Resources
IETF Working Group (formed summer 1996)
Collective knowledge of the IETF
Designers typically still active in the IETF
Industry support
Many organizations doing their own Y2K research
Communication with other standards bodies
May 25, 1999
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Y2K Working Group
Y2K concepts are well understood
Use the collective knowledge of the IETF to examine our protocols
Largest roadblock was lack of interest
Most researchers were not interested in the mundane task of re-examining protocols
Distribute information as widely as possible
FOR MORE INFO...
May 25, 1999
© Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999

5. Investigative Process
Identified 15 categories
Autoconfiguration, Directory Services, Disk Sharing, Games/Chat, Information Services, Network/Transport Layer, Electronic Mail, Time, Name Services, Network Management, Routing, Real-Time Services, Security, Virtual Terminal, Network News
Categorized all the then published RFCs
Teams assigned to investigate each category
May 25, 1999
© Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999

6. Investigative Process
Software used to scan RFC’s for “hot” words
date, GMT, UTCTime, year, yy (not included in yyyy), two-digit, 2-digit, 2digit, century, 1900, and 2000
Manually read each and every RFC (~2300 RFCs)
May 25, 1999
© Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999

7. © Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999
Status
All research complete
Known issues have been well publicized to relevant communities
Awaiting final publication
Good news -- No major issues
Some minor problems
May 25, 1999
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8. © Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999
Y2K Problems
Directory Services
Potential problems in older versions of X.500 services
Information Services
Subtle issues in both HTTP 1.1 and HTML 2.0
Electronic Mail
Systems predating 1989 might have issues
May 25, 1999
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Y2K Problems
Name Services
Serial number issues
RFC 1982 describes problem and solution
Network Management
Possible problems with MIB timestamps
Real-Time Services
Minor issues with Network Paging Protocol
May 25, 1999
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Y2K Problems
Network News
Problem in NNTP (RFC 977) and Netnews Message Format (RFC 1036)
Current WG to provide solutions to the problems early this year
Impacts are expected to be minor
May 25, 1999
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11. © Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999
Caveats & Cautions
Do NOT read too much into this study
Examined protocols not implementations
e.g. SMTP was examined not Sendmail or Exchange
Examined protocols not infrastructure
e.g. BGP4 was examined but not Cisco routers
Examined protocols not end-user systems
Will Windows work? How about the BIOS of the PC? etc.
May 25, 1999
© Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999

12. © Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999
Remember …
…there are
only 220 days
remaining
May 25, 1999
© Nesser & Nesser Consulting 1999