Re: [netconf] Comments on draft-jgc-netconf-privcand

["Joe Clarke (jclarke)" <[e-mail]>]

I’ve had some side conversations, and I have come around to the usefulness of auto-update for network config.  In my head, I was over-extending the paradigm of network as code, but in practice, those using private candidate without a backing store like git probably want an auto-update feature (if not the default).

Joe

From: James Cumming (Nokia) <[e-mail]>
Date: Monday, July 31, 2023 at 09:45
To: Joe Clarke (jclarke) <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Comments on draft-jgc-netconf-privcand
Thanks for the comments Joe.  The authors will take a good look through them and address them either in the next version of the draft or on the list shortly.

It’s really useful to have the specific feedback and I’d encourage others to share as well.




From: netconf <[e-mail]> on behalf of Joe Clarke (jclarke) <jclarke=[e-mail]>
Date: Thursday, 27 July 2023 at 14:44
To: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: [netconf] Comments on draft-jgc-netconf-privcand
I mentioned some of this in chat (as my browser permissions were giving me a fit).  I support this work.  I think taken with the tracing and txid work it brings the possibility of more context and metadata to configuration changes.  I like the “git” aspects being pushed to the NETCONF/RESTCONF server.

I agree with Balazs that conflict resolution is important here, and I like the idea of using txid as a means to do this.  I don’t particularly like the auto-update approach, though.  I’d rather attempt a <commit> and find than an update and potential resolution is needed.

I was also going to make a similar comment to Quifang.  I would like to see the ability to delete a private candidate on commit.  If we care about the private candidate name (perhaps for tracing), I might want to do one type of change in private-add-exampleco1-vpn, commit it, and then have the candidate deleted so I can continue my session with a new private candidate for another change.

I suppose I can <delete-config> this to remove the old private candidate, but I’d like an extension to commit to do this at once (though not so much of a big deal).  I’d rather not have to disconnect and reconnect the session to perform this type of flow, though.

Joe