RFC 1189

Common Management Information Services and Protocols for the Internet (CMOT and CMIP)

📅 published October 1990, from ietf

Part 1 of 3 🎀

The Common Management Information Services and Protocols for the Internet (CMOT and CMIP) 🦋

Okay bestie, the title block first 🪪. This is RFC 1189, and it's dated October 1990. It came out of the "Network Working Working Group" (yes, the header literally says Working Working, I'm not making that up 💀). The authors are U. Warrier of Netlabs, L. Besaw of Hewlett-Packard, L. LaBarre of The Mitre Corporation, and B. Handspicker of Digital Equipment Corporation 👑. It obsoletes RFC 1095 🫡, and it doesn't list any RFC it updates. The status section calls it an IAB standards track protocol.

Status of this Memo 📜

So this memo defines a network management architecture that uses the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) Common Management Information Services/Common Management Information Protocol (CMIS/CMIP) in the Internet 🌐. It specifies an IAB standards track protocol for the Internet community, and it's asking for discussion and suggestions for improvements 💜. For the standardization state and status of this protocol, check the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol Standards" 📚.

Distribution of this memo is unlimited ✨.

Table of Contents 🗂️

   1. Overview ...................................................    2
   2. Introduction ...............................................    3
   3. Protocol Overview ..........................................    4
   3.1. The CMOT Protocol Suite ..................................    5
   3.2. The CMIP Protocol Suite ..................................    6
   3.3. Conformance Requirements .................................    6
   4. Common Management Information Service Element ..............    7
   4.1. Association Policies .....................................    7
   4.2. CMIS Services ............................................    9
   4.2.1 General Agreements on Users of CMIS .....................    9
   4.2.2 Specific Agreements on Users of CMIS ....................   10
   4.3. CMIP Agreements ..........................................   10
   5. Services Required by CMIP ..................................   10
   6. Acknowledgements ...........................................   11
   7. References .................................................   11
   8. Security Considerations.....................................   14
   9. Authors' Addresses..........................................   14

1. Overview ✨

Okay so this memo is a revision of RFC 1095, which was called "The Common Management Information Services and Protocol over TCP/IP" [27] 📝. It defines a network management architecture that uses the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) Common Management Information Services/Common Management Information Protocol (CMIS/CMIP) in the Internet. This architecture gives you a way to exchange control and monitoring information between a manager and a remote network element 🎯.

More specifically, this memo defines how to implement the International Standard (IS) version of CMIS/CMIP on top of both IP-based and OSI-based Internet transport protocols, for carrying management information defined in the Internet-standard management information base. Together with the relevant ISO standards and the companion RFCs that describe the initial structure of management information and the management information base, these documents form a comprehensive architecture and system for managing both IP-based and OSI-based internets, and especially the Internet 🌈.

In creating this revision of RFC 1095, the following technical and editorial changes were made 🔥:

The tutorial section on OSI Management included in RFC 1095 has been removed from this document. After some revisions, the tutorial material may be published as another RFC.
The sections in RFC 1095 which discussed the semantics of how to interpret requests in the context of Internet MIBs has been removed from this protocol document. This topic is now discussed in the OIM-MIB-II draft document. This protocol should be useable with MIB-I or MIB-II. But, it will also be able to exploit the new features of the OIM-MIB-II.
This document is based on the final International Standards for CMIS/CMIP (ISO 9595/9596) rather than the Draft International Standards.
Many of the original agreements defined in RFC 1095 have been accepted and included in the OIW NMSIG implementers agreements. Rather than duplicating these agreements, they have been removed from this memo. This document should be read in conjunction with ISO 9595/9596 (CMIS/CMIP) and the OIW Stable Agreements document.
The Association Negotiation described in RFC 1095 has been changed to align with current international and national agreements. But, it has retained backwards compatibility with the assignment of an Application Context Name which is identical to the Application Context Name specified in RFC 1095.

2. Introduction 💅

Okay so this memo is the output of the OSI Internet Management Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 🫶. As directed by the Internet Activities Board (IAB) in RFC 1052, it addresses the need for a long-term network management system based on ISO CMIS/CMIP. It contains a set of protocol agreements for implementing a network management system based on these ISO Management standards. Now that CMIS/CMIP has been voted an International Standard (IS), it has become a stable basis for product development ✨.

This profile specifies how to apply CMIP to management of both IP-based and OSI-based Internet networks. Network management using ISO CMIP to manage IP-based networks will be referred to as "CMIP Over TCP/IP" (CMOT). Network management using ISO CMIP to manage OSI-based networks will be referred to as "CMIP". This memo specifies the protocol agreements necessary to implement CMIP and accompanying ISO protocols over OSI, TCP and UDP transport protocols 🦋.

This memo must be read alongside ISO and Internet documents that define specific protocol standards 📖. Implementors need documents defining these ISO standards: Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) [5, 6], Association Control (ACSE) [7, 8], Remote Operations (ROSE) [9, 10], Common Management Information Services (CMIS) [11] and Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) [12], along with their addenda [32-35]. A lightweight presentation layer protocol specification is required for use with the CMOT section of this profile (see RFC 1085 [13]). The SMI (see RFC 1065 [2]), the MIB-I (see RFC 1066 [3]), the MIB-II (see RFC 1156 [28]), and the OIM-MIB-II (see [29]) are used with this management system.

This memo is split into sections for each of the protocols that need implementors' agreements: CMISE, ACSE, ROSE, and, for CMOT, the lightweight presentation protocol. The profile in this memo draws on the technical work of the OSI Network Management Forum [14] and the Network Management Special Interest Group (NMSIG) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (formerly the National Bureau of Standards) [30]. Wherever possible, an attempt has been made to either directly reference or stay consistent with the protocol agreements reached by these groups 🌸.

3. Protocol Overview 🧚

This part of the document is a specification of the protocols of the OIM architecture 🍓. It contains the agreements required to implement interoperable network management systems using these protocols. The protocol suite defined by these implementors' agreements will make it easier for equipment from different vendors, suppliers, and networks to talk to each other. This will allow the emergence of powerful multivendor network management based on ISO models and protocols 💖.

The choice of a set of protocol standards, together with the further agreements needed to implement those standards, is commonly referred to as a "profile." The selection policy for this profile is to use existing standards from the international standards community (ISO and CCITT) and the Internet community. Existing ISO standards and draft standards in the area of OSI network management form the basis of this profile. Other ISO application layer standards (ROSE and ACSE) are used to support the ISO management protocol (CMIP). To ensure interoperability, certain choices and restrictions are made here concerning various options and parameters provided by these standards. Internet standards are used to provide the underlying network transport. These agreements give a precise statement of the implementation choices made for implementing ISO network management standards in IP-based and OSI-based internets 🔥.

Besides the OIM working group, at least two other bodies are actively defining profiles for interoperable OSI network management: the OSI Implementors Workshop (OIW) and the OSI Network Management Forum. Both of these groups are similar to the OIM working group in that they are each defining profiles for using ISO standards for network management. They differ in that they specify only the use of underlying ISO protocols, while the OIM working group is concerned with using OSI management in both OSI and TCP/IP networks. For the sake of greater future compatibility, the OIM working group has tried to make this profile conform as closely as possible to the ongoing work of these two bodies 👑.

This section will describe the CMOT Protocol Suite, the CMIP Protocol Suite and the Conformance Requirements common to both CMOT and CMIP. Later sections will specify the implementors' agreements for the specific layer protocols that make up the CMOT and CMIP Protocol Suites ✨.

…continued in Part 2 👀

3.1. The CMOT Protocol Suite 🎀

okay bestie, the CMOT suite is made of seven protocols 💅: ISO ACSE, ISO DIS ROSE, ISO CMIP, the lightweight presentation protocol (LPP), UDP, TCP, and IP. Figure 2 shows how they all stack together, and it's giving layers 🧁

                 +----------------------------------------------+
                         Management Application Processes
                 +----------------------------------------------+

                             +-------------------+
                                     CMISE
                                 ISO 9595/9596
                             +-------------------+

                 +------------------+       +--------------------+
                          ACSE                       ROSE
                   ISO IS 8649/8650           ISO DIS 9072-1/2
                 +------------------+       +--------------------+

                 +-----------------------------------------------+
                       Lightweight Presentation Protocol (LPP)
                                     RFC 1085
                 +-----------------------------------------------+

                 +------------------+       +--------------------+
                         TCP                         UDP
                       RFC 793                     RFC 768
                 +------------------+       +--------------------+

                 +-----------------------------------------------+
                                       IP
                                     RFC 791
                 +-----------------------------------------------+

                      Figure 2.  The CMOT Protocol Suite

3.2. The CMIP Protocol Suite 🦋

the CMIP suite is a bit different 🙈 it has six protocols: ISO ACSE, ISO DIS ROSE, ISO CMIP, ISO Presentation, ISO Session and ISO Transport. Figure 3 is where you can see how they're layered.

                 +----------------------------------------------+
                         Management Application Processes
                 +----------------------------------------------+

                             +-------------------+
                                     CMISE
                                 ISO 9595/9596
                             +-------------------+

                 +------------------+       +--------------------+
                          ACSE                       ROSE
                     ISO 8649/8650            ISO DIS 9072-1/2
                 +------------------+       +--------------------+

                 +-----------------------------------------------+
                                ISO Presentation
                                    ISO
                 +-----------------------------------------------+

                 +-----------------------------------------------+
                                ISO Session
                                    ISO
                 +-----------------------------------------------+

                 +-----------------------------------------------+
                                ISO Transport
                                    ISO
                 +-----------------------------------------------+

                      Figure 3.  The CMIP Protocol Suite

3.3. Conformance Requirements ✨

so for conformance, a CMOT-conformant system MUST implement ACSE, ROSE, CMIP, LPP, and IP. it also MUST support using LPP over either UDP or TCP. running LPP over both UDP and TCP on the same system MAY be supported, so that's a bonus, not a must 🫶

a CMIP-conformant system MUST implement ACSE, ROSE, CMIP, ISO Presentation, ISO Session and ISO Transport. no cap, that's the whole checklist 💖

4. Common Management Information Service Element 👑

the Common Management Information Service Element (CMISE) is spelled out in two ISO documents 📚. The service definition for the Common Management Information Service (CMIS) is in ISO 9595 [11]. The protocol spec for the Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) is in ISO 9596 [12]. the addenda for add/remove support in M-SET [32, 34] MUST be supported for both CMOT and CMIP. the addenda for M-CANCEL-GET [33, 35] MAY be supported by an implementation, but its use is negotiated as part of association negotiation. it's a choice, lowkey 🌸

4.1. Association Policies 💅

the following ACSE services are REQUIRED by CMISE: A-ASSOCIATE, A-RELEASE, A-ABORT, and A-P-ABORT. the rest of the CMIP protocol uses the RO-INVOKE, RO-RESULT, RO-ERROR, and RO-REJECT services of ROSE.

there are four types of association that MAY be negotiated between managing and managed systems. they are:

      Event               M-EVENT-REPORTs MAY be sent by the
                          managed system; no other CMIP PDUs
                          are allowed

      Event/Monitor       same as Event type except that, in
                          addition, the managing system MAY
                          also issue M-GET requests and
                          receive M-GET responses over the
                          association

      Monitor/Control     managing system MAY issue M-GET,
                          M-SET, M-CREATE, M-DELETE and
                          M-ACTION requests over the
                          association; no event reporting is
                          allowed

      Full Mgr/Agent      all functions MUST be supported

a conformant system MUST support at least one of these Association types 🎀 and a system MAY play both the managing and managed system roles, just not on the same association.

the negotiation process uses the A-ASSOCIATE and A-RELEASE services. Application Context Name is what decides the requestor's "role" in an association (managing or managed system) and what type the association is.

the following values for Application Context Name are registered for CMOT and CMIP:

      {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
           internet(1) mgmt(2) mib(1) oim(9) acn(1)
           cmot1095(1)}
           (for backwards compatible negotiation with RFC 1095 CMOT
           implementations)

      {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
           internet(1) mgmt(2) mib(1) oim(9) acn(1)
           manager-event-association(2)}

      {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
           internet(1) mgmt(2) mib(1) oim(9) acn(1)
           manager-event-monitor-association(3)}

      {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
           internet(1) mgmt(2) mib(1) oim(9) acn(1)
           manager-monitor-control-association(4)}

      {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
           internet(1) mgmt(2) mib(1) oim(9) acn(1)
           manager-full-association(5)}

      {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
           internet(1) mgmt(2) mib(1) oim(9) acn(1)
           agent-event-association(6)}

here are the negotiation rules, so pay attention 👀

a managed system MAY only request an Event association and, in fact, MUST create an Event association if it has an event to report and no suitable association already exists.
managing systems MAY request any association type.
an association is created when the requesting system issues an A-ASSOCIATE request with the requestor's AE-TITLE and the desired application context. the responding system then returns either 1) an A-ASSOCIATE response with the requestor's AE-TITLE and the application context it wishes to accept, or 2) an A-ASSOCIATE response rejecting the association.
managed systems MAY negotiate "downward" from Full to Monitor/Control, Event/Monitor or Event by returning the new application context in the A-ASSOCIATE response to the managing system during the association creation process. in the same way, managed systems MAY negotiate from Event/Monitor to Event.
when a managing system receives an application context in an A-ASSOCIATE response that differs from the context sent in an A-ASSOCIATE request, it MAY either proceed with the new context or refuse the new context by issuing an A-RELEASE request.

A-RELEASE is used when the requestor doesn't agree with the new context. A-ABORT is used for invalid negotiation. ngl, A-ABORT is kind of a drama queen 💀 because if you use it to end an association, you can lose information, like pending events or confirmations. A-ABORT MUST be used, however, when a protocol violation occurs or when an association is not yet established. 🚨

4.2. CMIS Services 🧚

4.2.1 General Agreements on Users of CMIS ✨

the general agreements on users of CMIS SHALL be as specified in the OIW Stable Agreements [30] section 18.6.2. here are the extra agreements:

A system need only implement the services and service primitives REQUIRED for the association types (section 4.1) that it supports. 🫶
The Current/Event time fields SHALL use 1 millisecond granularity. If the system generating the PDU doesn't have the current time, but it does have the time since last boot, then GeneralizedTime can be used to encode this information. The time since last boot will be added to the base time "0001 Jan 1 00:00:00.00" using the Gregorian calendar algorithm. (In the Gregorian calendar, all years have 365 days except those divisible by 4 and not by 400, which have 366.) Using year 1 as the base year is iconic because it prevents any confusion with current time 🕰️

If no meaningful time is available, then the year 0 SHALL be used in GeneralizedTime to indicate this fact. 💀

4.2.2 Specific Agreements on Users of CMIS 🍓

the specific agreements on users of CMIS SHALL be as specified in the OIW Stable Agreements [30] section 18.6.3. here are the extra ones:

Event time SHALL be mandatory for all events. ⭐
Both the "managed Object Class" and "managed Object Instance" parameters MUST be present in the following CMIS Service Response/Confirmation primitives: the M-EVENT-REPORT Confirmed, the M-GET, the M-SET, the M-ACTION, the M-CREATE, and the M-DELETE. 🔥

4.3. CMIP Agreements 💜

the CMIS and CMIP implementers agreements in the OIW Stable Implementers Agreements [30], plus the ones mandated by the CMIP standard, will be used for both CMOT and CMIP. on top of those implementers agreements, the following specific agreements MUST be observed:

An implementation is REQUIRED to support all filter items except subsetOf, supersetOf, nonNullSetIntersection, and substrings. 🌈
The managedObjectInstance field MUST be present in the ProcessingFailure Error PDU. The managedObjectClass field MUST be present in the NoSuchArgument Error PDU. ✨

[Temporary Note: The CMIS/P implementers agreements have reached a fairly stable status in the OIW working agreements document. It is expected that the CMIS/P agreements (18.6.2 and 18.6.3) will be recommended to be moved into the stable agreements document during either the June 1990 meetings. Reference [30] points to the presumed June 1990 updated version of the stable agreements document.] 🎀

5. Services Required by CMIP ✨

okay so the services CMIP needs are basically the ones in the OIW Stable Implementors Agreements, section 18.6.5 [30] 💅 The services required by CMIP SHALL be as specified in the OIW Stable Implementors Agreements [30] section 18.6.5. On top of that, there are a few extra agreements you're gonna want to know about 🎀

ASCE Requirements: Application contexts SHALL be as defined in section 4.1 of these agreements. The values and defaults of parameters to the ACSE parameters given to the presentation service are specified in RFC 1085 [13] for CMOT and in the NIST Stable Implementers Agreements [30] for CMIP.
Presentation Requirements: CMOT implementations SHALL be supported by the Lightweight Presentation Protocol (LPP) [13]. The LPP MAY use either TCP or UDP. When UDP is used, an implementation need not accept LPP PDUs whose length exceeds 484 octets. 🦋
Session Requirements: CMOT implementations will not require the session protocol. 🧚

6. Acknowledgements 🫶

this RFC is literally the result of so many people's work, and the members of the IETF OSI Internet Management and preceding Netman working groups who made important contributions are the real MVPs 👑

         Amatzia Ben-Artzi, Synoptics
         Asheem Chandna, AT&T Bell Laboratories
         Ken Chapman, Digital Equipment Corporation
         Anthony Chung, Sytek
         George Cohn, Ungermann-Bass
         Gabriele Cressman, Sun Microsystems
         Tom Halcin, Hewlett-Packard
         Pranati Kapadia, Hewlett-Packard
         Lee LaBarre, The MITRE Corporation (co-chair)
         Dave Mackie, 3Com
         Keith McCloghrie, Hughes/InterLan
         Jim Robertson, 3Com
         Milt Roselinsky, CMC
         Marshall Rose, PSI
         John Scott, Data General
         Lou Steinberg, IBM

7. References 📚

here's the full reading list, bestie. every single one is listed with all its details 🤓

[1] Cerf, V., "IAB Recommendations for the Development of Internet Network Management Standards", RFC 1052, IAB, April 1988.

[2] Rose, M., and K. McCloghrie, "Structure and Identification of Management Information for TCP/IP-based internets", RFC 1065, TWG, August 1988.

[3] McCloghrie, K., and M. Rose, "Management Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based internets", RFC 1066, TWG, August 1988.

[4] Case, J., M. Fedor, M. Schoffstall, and J. Davin, "A Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)", RFC 1098, (Obsoletes RFC 1067), University of Tennessee at Knoxville, NYSERNet, Inc., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, April 1989.

[5] ISO 8824: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Specification of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1)", Geneva, March 1988.

[6] ISO 8825: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Specification of Basic Encoding Rules for Abstract Notation One (ASN.1)", Geneva, March 1988.

[7] ISO 8649: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Service Definition for Association Control Service Element".

[8] ISO 8650: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Protocol Specification for Association Control Service Element".

[9] CCITT Recommendation X.219, Working Document for ISO 9072-1: "Information processing systems - Text Communication, Remote Operations: Model, Notation and Service Definition", Gloucester, November 1987.

[10] CCITT Recommendation X.229, Working Document for ISO 9072-2: "Information processing systems - Text Communication, Remote Operations: Protocol Specification", Gloucester, November 1987.

[11] ISO 9595: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Management Information Service Definition - Part 2: Common Management Information Service", 22 December 1988.

[12] ISO 9596: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Management Information Protocol Specification - Part 2: Common Management Information Protocol", 22 December 1988.

[13] Rose, M., "ISO Presentation Services on top of TCP/IP-based internets", RFC 1085, TWG, December 1988.

[14] OSI Network Management Forum, "Forum Interoperable Interface Protocols", September 1988.

[15] ISO DIS 7498-4: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Basic Reference Model - Part 4: OSI Management Framework".

[16] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG4 N571: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Systems Management: Overview", London, July 1988.

[17] Klerer, S. Mark, "The OSI Management Architecture: An Overview", IEEE Network Magazine, March 1988.

[18] Ben-Artzi, A., "Network Management for TCP/IP Networks: An Overview", Internet Engineering Task Force working note, April 1988.

[19] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG4 N3324: "Information Processing Pystems - Open Systems Interconnection, Management Information Services - Structure of Management Information - Part I: Management Information Model", Sydney, December 1988.

[20] Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", RFC 768, USC/Information Sciences Institute, August 1980.

[21] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", RFC 793, USC/Information Sciences Institute, September 1981.

[22] ISO DP 9534: "Information processing systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Application Layer Structure", 10 March 1987.

[23] Rose, M., and D. Cass, "ISO Transport Services on top of the TCP, Version: 3", RFC 1006, Northrop Research and Technology Center, May 1987.

[24] ISO 8822: "Information Processing Systems - Open Systems Interconnection, Connection Oriented Presentation Service Definition", June 1987.

[25] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", RFC 791, USC/Information Sciences Institute, September 1981.

[26] CCITT Draft Recommendation X.500, ISO 9594/1-8: "The Directory", Geneva, March 1988.

[27] Warrier, U. and L. Besaw, "The Common Management Information Services and Protocol over TCP/IP (CMOT)", RFC 1095, Unisys Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, April 1989.

[28] McCloghrie, K., and M. Rose, "Management Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based internets", RFC 1156, Hughes LAN Systems, Performance Systems International, May 1990.

[29] LaBarre, L., "OIM MIB-II", working note, December 1989.

[30] NIST NMSIG, "NIST Stable Implementers Agreements", NIST Special Publication 500-162, as ammended by June 1990.

[31] NIST NMSIG, "NIST Working Implementers Agreements", December 1989.

[32] ISO IS 9595 1989: DAD1: "CMIS Add/Remove Addendum".

[33] ISO IS 9595 1989: DAD2: "CMIS Cancel-Get Addendum".

[34] ISO IS 9596 1989: DAD1: "CMIP Add/Remove Addendum".

[35] ISO IS 9596 1989: DAD2: "CMIP Cancel-Get Addendum".

8. Security Considerations 🔒

this part is short but it's a big deal, so pay attention 💀

Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

9. Authors' Addresses 💌

the authors, with their contact details, are below 🦋

   Unnikrishnan S. Warrier
   NetLabs
   11693 San Vicente Blvd
   Suite 348
   Los Angeles, CA 90049

   Phone: (213) 476-4070
   Email: unni@netlabs.com


   Larry Besaw
   Hewlett-Packard
   3404 East Harmony Road
   Fort Collins, CO 80525

   Phone: (303) 229-6022
   Email: lmb%hpcndaw@hplabs.hp.com


   Lee LaBarre
   Mitre
   Burlington Road
   Bedford, MA 01730

   Phone: (617) 271-8507
   Email: cel@mbunix.mitre.org

   Brian D. Handspicker
   Digital Equipment Corporation
   550 King St.
   Littleton, Ma. 01460

   Phone: (508) 486-7894
   Email: bd@vines.enet.dec.com

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