I like a lot of the proposal. But one of the issues here is that none of ftp, http, or mailto is secure. (Note: username/password ftp is still cleartext – not INTO the BES service but rather from the BES service to the FTP service)

-- Marty

From: ogsa-hpcp-wg-bounces@ogf.org [mailto:ogsa-hpcp-wg-bounces@ogf.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Grimshaw
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 1:45 PM
To: ogsa-hpcp-wg@ogf.org
Subject: [ogsa-hpcp-wg] File staging extension

All,

Today we discussed which URI’s to support in the proposed file staging extensions. Particularly for SC07.

I suggest the following URI’s

ftp

http

mailto

because they do not require us to address the issue of delegation in advance of SC07. (As I said at the last OGF I do not think the delegation approach in the delegation proposal is a good idea).

Of course I think ByteIO/RNS is a good idea – but I don’t expect much support for that. (We support it.)

Note that there exists a standard format for an ftp URI which includes username/password. Therefore one could include the information in the JSDL document without any need for delegation. (I do not know gridFTP well, perhaps it supports a similar set of uri options, eliminating the need for passing a delegated credential.)

On the other hand if we choose to support gridFTP, scp, or any other protocol that requires a delegated credential, then we must also agree on a delegation strategy … with a potential need to replace it later. (By the way, we are not familiar with a standard URI format for scp.)

Right now we (the Virginia Genesis II group) support ftp, http, mailto, and RNS with delegated credentials (not via the same mechanism Marty is proposing).

A