Re: Separation of configuration and control - good or bad?

[Eliot Lear <lear@cisco.com>]

[Thank you for responding directly to me.  I am still not receiving 
netconf mail.]

Larry Menten wrote:
> As the draft currently stands, the deletion of an interface requires 
> providing the complete, desired
> configuration subtree to be contained in the parent element and doing a 
> "replace" operation.
> Do you agree that this is the implication of the design, or am I missing 
> something?
I agree with the implication of the design, and I believe you're missing 
something.  The deletion of an interface requires the execution of an 
edit-config operation which in turn will modify whatever portion of the 
configuration you have specified.  How that is structured will depend 
very much on the individual device schema.

> > > You have missed the point. The spec forces a mechanism that makes many
> > > simple configuration operations fragile and dangerous. Nothing to do 
> > > with the
> > > schema. All to do with the model adopted in the draft.
> >
> >
> > This is just hyperbole.  Adding even a non-granular lock fixes your 
> > complaint.
>
> It wasn't meant to be hyperbole.  A design that supports 
> add/delete/replace/merge
> and explicitly names the target of the operation does not require as 
> much locking
> to assure robust management as one that expresses transactions as 
> overlay/replace/merge
> and leaves it to the agent to determine what target was meant.
I agree with you to a point.  If you can do granular locking then life 
is better.  However, that requires two things: (a) a standard and (b) 
that each network element implement that standard.  You're asking for a 
very high bar on implementations, particularly low end ones.  On those 
low end implementations there truly is no need for granular locking.

Eliot


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