An open discussion list for topics related to the eduGAIN interfederation service.

[Peter Schober <peter.schober AT univie.ac.at>]

* Daniel Muscat <daniel.muscat AT um.edu.mt> [2019-09-02 10:06]:
> On Fri, 30 Aug 2019 at 11:46, Rhys Smith <Rhys.Smith AT jisc.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Federation policy:
> >
> > * P5 - various references to technology profiles, e.g. “temporarily
> > suspend individual technology profiles” - these profiles aren’t mentioned
> > or detailed anywhere.
> 
> Regarding P5, we have not yet written any profile documents yet and
> will be written as soon as we see the need of. Is the absence of
> such documents a show-stopper to become members in eduGAIN?

A simple sentence along the lines of "At this time $federation does
not publish any technical profiles" at the referenced location would
suffice. Then you're free to add any such profiles to the referenced
location at a later time (if ever) without having to go back and
change the policy document itself each time you add or remove a
profile (which might require re-signing by management or even all
federation members, depending on how formally you structure the
federation).

At least that was the idea when creating the GEANT federation policy
template document.  I realise this decision may have created more
issues for new federations (using the template text unmodified with
null/dangling pointers to non-existing profiles) than it might have
prevented so far. But then fixing the above issue eary is simple and
should prevent much harder to solve problems down the line (such as
actually having to ask all federation members' management for new ink
signatures on a changed policy.)

-peter