Re: draft-shafer-netconf-syslog-00.txt

[Shane Kerr <Shane_Kerr@isc.org>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Phil Shafer wrote:
> I've finally got an initial version of the draft for a netconf
> capability that makes syslog data available over long-lived RPCs.
> I just sent it off to the RFC Editor, so it should show up on
> ietf.org sometime this weekend, but an advance copy is available.
> 
> http://professional.juniper.net/phil/ietf/draft-shafer-netconf-syslog-00.txt

Nicely done. One concern I have is difficulty for clients to actually
get historical messages without duplication.

On my system here, syslog records events with second-precision. A lot
can happen in a second, on a busy system. So, I get a message from syslog:

Jun 19 09:38:36 r00t3r kern.warn kernel: groove is in the heart

Then my NETCONF session ends (for whatever reason... number of messages,
network failure, or so on). So, when my NETCONF session restarts, I can
either:

- - Ask for <start-time>2006-06-19T09:38:36Z</start-time>, and filter out
any messages that I think I have seen (I guess a client could keep a
buffer with all messages from the current second). This presumes the
client knows that the server won't have sub-second accuracy.

- - Ask for <start-time>2006-06-19T09:38:37Z</start-time>, and hope I
didn't miss any messages.

Plus, using time means server clock skew would cause almost unlimited
confusion. :)

I think it would be much nicer to assign a unique identifier to each
event. I recommend an increasing number. In this case, the server would
only need to output the number at the beginning of the answer (and maybe
periodically also). The client knows what the last event it received is,
because it increments for each one.

I think <start-time> still makes sense, as I can see administrators
wanting to always the last 5 minutes of logs in their client when they
start it (for example).

- --
Shane

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFElnu+MsfZxBO4kbQRAluTAJ9dx/vn1T/dSsY+3/XFx7LWR8V7ZACfbegZ
hPtDqHxRnopvHSvAZtXXsOM=
=4mtE
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
to unsubscribe send a message to netconf-request@ops.ietf.org with
the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body.
archive: <http://ops.ietf.org/lists/netconf/>