Re: [Teas] [netmod] Key collision between configured and ephemeral list entries

[Italo Busi <[e-mail]>]

Rob, Tarek,

Thanks for following-up this discussion

I like the suggestion to use a prefix string: those who prefers using one character (e.g., '#') could use a single character string

Regarding the configuration, one possible issue that just jumped into my mind is what happens when the prefix is (re-)configured by the client after some ephemeral tunnels have been created ...

An alternative solution could be to let the server decide which prefix to use (server implementation issue) and to provide a read-only YANG leaf to report this information to the client, such that the client knows it could not use this prefix for the configured tunnels

My 2 cents

Italo

-----Original Message-----
From: Tarek Saad [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: mercoledì 29 maggio 2019 17:22
To: Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[e-mail]>; tom petch <[e-mail]>; Italo Busi <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [Teas] [netmod] Key collision between configured and ephemeral list entries

Hi Rob,

Inline..

On 5/29/19, 9:05 AM, "Teas on behalf of Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:

    Are these ephemeral tunnels created and named by the device itself?
[TS]: yes, some of those are auto-created by the device (e.g. triggered by some local event).

    Possibly using a human readable prefix (or suffix) might be better than using a symbol.
    
    E.g. perhaps a prefix of "sys-" as an abbreviation for system.
[TS]: I tend to agree here. I had suggested making this prefix configurable - not sure if this brings more trouble. 

[TS]: On a similar note, on the controller, some tunnels from different ingress routers will be reported up to the controller. One way to avoid collision of same tunnel name existing on multiple ingress devices, we thought of is for that controller to (automatically) append the ingress router name (or IP address) before consuming the reported tunnel into the controller tunnel list. Thoughts?

Regards,
Tarek
    
    Thanks,
    Rob
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Teas <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of tom petch
    Sent: 29 May 2019 12:04
    To: Italo Busi <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
    Cc: [e-mail]
    Subject: Re: [Teas] [netmod] Key collision between configured and ephemeral list entries
    
    
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Italo Busi" <[e-mail]>
    Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2019 11:02 AM
    
    Hi Tom,
    
    Thanks for your reply
    
    It seems to me that the text you have quoted is from:
    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7950#section-6.2
    
    If I can understand correctly, especially for section 6.2.1, this constraints does not apply to name attributes whose syntax is defined as a string and used as key of a list, such as the tunnel list defined in the TE YANG model:
    
         |  +--rw tunnel* [name]
         |  |  +--ro operational-state?                  identityref
         |  |  +--rw name                                string
    
    My understanding is that a tunnel list entry with a name starting with '#' can exist in a YANG DS
    
    <tp>
    
    Italo
    
    Ah yes, my misunderstanding.  'string' type is a bit more flexible i.e.
    
       The string built-in type represents human-readable strings in YANG.
       Legal characters are the Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646 [ISO.10646]
       characters, including tab, carriage return, and line feed but
       excluding the other C0 control characters, the surrogate blocks, and
       the noncharacters.
    
    Plenty of scope there!
    
    
    If this approach is taken, then I agree that hash is a good choice as it stands out, unlike, say, underscore which vanishes in the line of text.
    
    Tom Petch
    
    Thanks, Italo
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: tom petch [mailto:[e-mail]]
    Sent: mercoledì 29 maggio 2019 10:42
    To: Italo Busi <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
    Cc: [e-mail]
    Subject: Re: [netmod] Key collision between configured and ephemeral list entries
    
    <inline>
    
    Tom Petch
    
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Italo Busi" <[e-mail]>
    To: <[e-mail]>
    Cc: <[e-mail]>
    Sent: Monday, May 27, 2019 2:16 PM
    Subject: [netmod] Key collision between configured and ephemeral list entries
    
    
    On Friday within the TEAS WG, we have discussed an issue which seems generic and therefore agreed to ask for guidelines to the Netmod WG
    
    In the TE YANG model we have defined a tunnel list with a name attribute used as a key:
    
         |  +--rw tunnel* [name]
         |  |  +--ro operational-state?                  identityref
         |  |  +--rw name                                string
    
    See: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-teas-yang-te-21
    
    The issue we are facing is how to avoid name collision between configured and ephemeral tunnels. In other words, the issue we are trying to address is how to avoid the client to assign to a configured tunnel a name which have been already assigned by the server to another ephemeral tunnel and vice-versa, in particular considering NMDA rules
    
    We believe that the issue is generic and apply to any configured and ephemeral list entries
    
    Has this issue been already discussed/resolved in Netmod WG?
    
    If not, what is the Netmod WG opinion/suggestion? We are currently considering the following option:
    
       Use a special character for ephemeral names - e.g. such names always are prepended by special character "#"
       Make the special character changeable by configuration - the default can be "#" and user can change if they desire..
    
    <tp>
    
    If this is to conform with YANG 1.1, RFC7950, then the constraint is
    
       Identifiers are used to identify different kinds of YANG items by
       name.  Each identifier starts with an uppercase or lowercase ASCII
       letter or an underscore character, followed by zero or more ASCII
       letters, digits, underscore characters, hyphens, and dots.
    
    
    No # (hash) anywhere so I suspect that a lot of tooling will fail in an unpredictable way if it encounters an illegal character in an identifier.
    
    Tom Petch
    
    
    Thanks, Italo
    
    Italo Busi
    Principal Optical Transport Network Research Engineer Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Tel : [phone]
    Email : [e-mail]
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    From: Tarek Saad [mailto:[e-mail]]
    Sent: venerdì 24 maggio 2019 23:13
    To: Igor Bryskin <[e-mail]>; Rakesh Gandhi <[e-mail]>; Xufeng <[e-mail]>; Vishnu Pavan Beeram <[e-mail]>; Italo Busi <[e-mail]>
    Cc: [e-mail]
    Subject: Discussion on modelling container TE tunnels in YANG
    
    The team on "to" list met to discuss this subject topic. Notes from today's discussion (please add if I missed):
    
    Name collision between configured and ephemeral tunnels:
      This is a generic problem in NMDA.
      How to handle collisions between configured and ephemeral (or
    auto-created) objects of a list, if the list uses the object (string
    based) name as the key?
      Both configured and ephemeral can have the same object name but they are different objects - how to avoid such collision.
     Proposed solution:
       Option 1:
       Use a special character for ephemeral names - e.g. such names always are prepended by special character "#"
       Make the special character changeable by configuration - the default can be "#" and user can change if they desire..
      Others?
    AI (Italo): to send email to netmod group.
    
    Container TE tunnels discussion:
    -          Container tunnels are grouping of tunnels between same 2
    endpoints to share incoming traffic towards the egress
    -          Member tunnels of a container tunnel can be
    auto-created/deleted on-demand and controlled by thresholds specified under the container
    -          Some attributes may apply on the container tunnel and
    inherited down to member tunnels of the container
    -          Q: Should model allow member tunnel to override inherited
    attributes from container tunnel?
    -          Q: Should all auto-created member tunnels of a container have
    the same prefix/suffix - i..e prefix/suffix can be configurable
    
    Regards,
    Tarek
    
    
    
    
    
    
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