Re: [Netconf] zerotouch issues found while preparing -20

[Kent Watsen <[e-mail]>]

Following up on the git commit shared below, here is an update to the 'description' statement for the "configuration" leaf:

https://github.com/netconf-wg/zero touch/commit/f8e2b5af46f2385d6cec2c36832ccb05bea7f97c

Please excuse my company's URL-mangler below.

Kent // contributor


===== original message =====


I found another issue while updating my PoC code to the current draft.  The issue comes from the draft's "zerotouch-information" artifact, a PKCS7 structure, only supporting a JSON-encoded payload.  The reason why it only supports a JSON-encoded payload was discussed on list before, but it goes to aligning with what draft-ietf-anima-voucher does.  The issue manifests itself when the payload encodes "onboarding-information", which has an 'anydata' node called "configuration".  Being 'anydata' inside a JSON-encoded document means that the configuration itself must also be JSON-encoded, but this is a problem for devices that don't support JSON encoded configuration, especially given that it's not possible for a bootstrap server (that may not have access to the YANG for the configuration) to generically convert JSON to XML. 

Stated the issue another way, the current solution couples the encoding of the submitted configuration with the encoding of the envelop that's used to convey the configuration.  

To address that, I propose replacing the 'anydata' node with a 'leaf' of type binary.  I don't foresee any interoperability issue with this change, as already the data sent to the device must be device-specific.  To be clear about this proposal, here is a commit that illustrates the change:

 https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_netconf-2Dwg_zero-2Dtouch_commit_14d92eec946b50eb980b51670ace6ce8bf2e2334&d=DwICAg&c=HAkYuh63rsuhr6Scbfh0UjBXeMK-ndb3voDTXcWzoCI&r=9zkP0xnJUvZGJ9EPoOH7Yhqn2gsBYaGTvjISlaJdcZo&m=faUqriB9skFYZtE6_oZ7hNbTizENpQ4YshBRdUWH1ZE&s=xsa6WrFHOZGyuJ5mYPrBSnEUFgGnFhiZlJ-yoloEkfg&e=

While this is a technical change, it doesn't change the solution in a material way, so I'm hoping that it doesn't necessitate another last call to approve.  If no objections are raised, I'll also apply this change to the pending -20 update.

<SNIP/>

Thoughts?

Kent  // contributor