Re: [Netconf] draft-cole-netconf-robust-config-01

[Martin Bjorklund <mbj at tail-f.com>]

Andy Bierman <andy at netconfcentral.com> wrote:
> Martin Bjorklund wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have read this document, and I think the ideas presented are very
> > interesting.
> > 
> > But I have a comment on the solution you have chosen to trigger the
> > tests.  It seems you have re-invented confirmed commit, with some
> > additional parameters.  IMO, the existing confirmed commit operation
> > is well suited for the things you want to do (maybe it was even
> > designed to be able to handle this kind of use case).  Why don't you
> > simply add a new operation <start-test> that can be used to trigger
> > the tests at the server when the conrimed commit is active?  This
> > would look like:
> 
> 
> I prefer the design of the verified commit over the confirmed commit.
> 
>   1) using the same command multiple times to do different things
>      is confusing and prone to errors (user B's first <commit>
>      can actually be used as user A's 2nd commit.  That's broken.)
> 
>   2) there is no way to cancel a confirmed-commit, other than
>      by dropping the session.  This is not very clean.

If you think the current confirmed commit is broken, it should be
fixed.  I don't like the idea of introducing new partly overlapping,
partly different operations in an ad-hoc manner.  I think it would be
better to fix confirmed commit (if necessary), and use it for this
function as well.  [this should be discussed in a separate thread]

>   3) the lack of notifications makes confirmed commit harder to
>      use in a network-wide config change.

But you have solved that with your new operation.  The <start-test>
operation would still generate notifications as in your proposal.  I
think this is a good idea.

>   4) overloading the <commit> operation with more modes is more
>      confusing than using a new operation.

The idea is that <commit> is not modified at all.  The new
<start-test> operation is orthogonal to <commit>.  The idea is that
the client uses <start-test> in the confirm time window, just like it
can do other tests before issuing the confirming commit.


/martin