Andy wrote:
> There has been an additional requirement raised that I don't
> agree with -- the ability to indicate that a parameter has ever
> been set by management, even if the value is the same as the
> default value. This is not the same as suppression of defaults,
> which is a bad idea. This is a 'dirty bit' flag that is true
> if the object has ever been set by management action. I don't
> see the value of knowing that the operator explicitly set the
> knob to 10, or implicitly set it to 10 via a default.
The requirement was to know which attributes of the configuration were touched by a management action so that a get-config would only return the attributes that were actually set by a management action. The purpose being to:
- Help make the configuration returned by the device the same as the configuration sent to the device;
- Reduce the size of the configuration information returned by a device (some devices have very large amounts of default configuration);
- Allow the network operator to continue to use the device's default values for attributes after a retrieved configuration is sent back to the box (once the default value becomes a part of a configuration file then it becomes difficult to edit the configuration file and it is also difficult to pickup new default values that the device may implement).
A corner case is when a management action sets the value of an attribute to the attribute's default value. The above three points still apply.
So, this is a very real requirement. The WG needs to decide if they want to support this requirement.
> Andy
Regards, /gww