draft-lengyel-netconf-granular-locking-00.txt

[Balazs Lengyel <balazs.lengyel@ericsson.com>]

I wrote a short document about granular locking for Netconf.

We in Ericsson feel that there is a strong need for granular locking.

Some of our configuration databases are so big that we can not use candidate 
configurations and for the same reason we must allow simultaneous paralel configuration 
sessions to manipulate different parts of the configuration.

I believe that we dont need to know the contents of the data model before we can devise a 
granular locking mechanism, just as the mechanism of the subtree-filter is not dependent 
on the data model it is filtering.

Any comments ?

regards Balazs
--
Balazs Lengyel                       Ericsson Hungary Ltd.
TSP System Manager & AXD Operational Suite (AOS) OPM
ECN: 831 7320                        Fax: +36 1 4377792
Tel: +36-1-437-7320     email: Balazs.Lengyel@ericsson.com



Network Working Group                                        B. Lengyel
Internet-Draft                                          	   Ericsson
Expires: May 14, 2006                                 December 11, 2005


           Granular Locking for the NETCONF Configuration Protocol
               draft-lengyel-netconf-granular-locking-00.txt

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   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

   The NETCONF protocol describes the lock and unlock operations 
   that (un)lock an entire configuration datastore. Often it is 
   needed to allow multiple management sessions to modify the 
   configuration of a managed element. In these cases it would be 
   needed to be able to lock only a part of a configuration 
   datastore. This draft proposes a capability based extension to 
   the NETCONF protocol to allow this.

   Please send comments to netconf@ops.ietf.org.  To subscribe, use
   netconf-request@ops.ietf.org.


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1.  Introduction

   The NETCONF protocol describes the lock and unlock operations 
   that (un)lock an entire configuration datastore. Often it is 
   needed to allow multiple management sessions to modify the 
   configuration of a managed element. In these cases it would be 
   needed to be able to lock only a part of a configuration 
   datastore. This draft proposes a capability based extension to 
   the NETCONF protocol to allow this.
   
   The managed information model behind NETCONF will not be 
   stable for a considerable time. Even so a mechanism for granular 
   locking can be defined based on the existing subtree filtering 
   and XPATH selection mechanisms in the protocl draft.
   
   Granular locking should be introduced as a capability into netconf.


2.  Granular Locking Capability

2.1.  Overview

   The :granular-locking capability indicates that the device supports
   the lock and unlock operations with a scope smaller then a complete 
   configuration datastore. The target can be specified using a 
   combination of a target datastore and a subtree filter or an 
   XPATH filter expression. A granular lock will succeed only if no 
   parts of the scope to be locked are locked by other management 
   users including users of NETCONF or any other management method. 
   The granular unlock operation has to specify the scope just the 
   same way as the granular lock operation. Granular unlock will only 
   succeed if the whole of the specified scope has been locked by the 
   user attempting to use the unlock operation. 

2.2.  Dependencies

   The :granular-locking capability's XPATH option is only relevant 
   if the :xpath capability is also supported.

2.3.  Capability Identifier

   The :granular-locking capability is identified by the following
   capability string:

      urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:granular-locking:1.0

2.4.  New Operations

   None.


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2.5.  Modifications to Existing Operations

2.5.1.  <lock>

   The :granular-locking capability modifies the <lock> operation
   to accept a <filter> element beside a <target>.

2.5.2.  <unlock>

   The :granular-locking capability modifies the <unlock> operation
   to accept a <filter> element beside a <target>.


3.  Security Considerations

   No change compared to the <lock> and <unlock> operation in [NETCONF].


4.  IANA Considerations

	None


5.  Authors and Acknowledgements

   This document was written by:

      Balazs Lengyel, Ericsson


6.  References

12.1.  Normative References

   [NETCONF]  Enns, R., "NETCONF Configuration Protocol",
              ID draft-ietf-netconf-prot-09, October 2005.


Appendix A.  Change Log

A.1.  First version

   o  Initial version



Author's Address

   Balazs Lengyel (editor)
   Ericsson
   P.O. BOX 107
   1037 Budapest
   Hungary

   Email: balazs.lengyel@ericsson.com