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Checking references for intended status: Proposed Standard ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (See RFCs 3967 and 4897 for information about using normative references to lower-maturity documents in RFCs) == Unused Reference: 'RFC6243' is defined on line 164, but no explicit reference was found in the text Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 3 warnings (==), 1 comment (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group M. Jethanandani 3 Internet-Draft Ciena Corporation 4 Intended status: Standards Track October 27, 2014 5 Expires: April 30, 2015 7 NETCONF and persistent responses 8 draft-mahesh-netconf-persistent-00 10 Abstract 12 This document outlines a solution for NETCONF operations that might 13 be initiated with a single request but require multiple responses to 14 be received, with an ability to terminate the operation at any time. 16 Status of This Memo 18 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 19 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 21 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 22 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 23 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 24 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 26 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 27 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 28 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 29 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 31 This Internet-Draft will expire on April 30, 2015. 33 Copyright Notice 35 Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 36 document authors. All rights reserved. 38 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 39 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 40 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 41 publication of this document. Please review these documents 42 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 43 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 44 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 45 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 46 described in the Simplified BSD License. 48 1. Introduction 50 NETCONF [RFC6241] protocol is being positioned as a replacement for 51 Command Line Interface (CLI) and Simple Network Management Protocol 52 (SNMP). It is therefore expected that NETCONF will provide all the 53 capabilities that CLI and SNMP offer today and more. 55 One of the operations that CLI offers today is the ability to issue 56 an operation that might result in multiple responses being returned, 57 till such time that a terminaing condition is encountered or when the 58 operation is cancelled. An example of such an operation is when the 59 ping or a traceroute command is issued. In the former case, the 60 operation can continue sending responses back till it is cancelled, 61 while in the latter case there is usually a terminating condition 62 that stops the responses. NETCONF protocol as defined today sends a 63 single Remote Procedure Call (RPC) request and expects a single reply 64 to that request. The "persistent" operation defined above expects 65 multiple responses for a single request, till such time a terminating 66 condition is encountered. 68 This problem should not be confused with "bulk responses" where one 69 might be dealing with fragments of the same response. It is not 70 enough to have the server collect all the possible responses before 71 responding because in some cases there may not be a response, 72 indicating a failure and it will hold up the NETCONF session till a 73 response is received. 75 Section 2 suggest at least one solution to this problem. 77 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 78 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 79 document are to be interpreted as described in Key words for use in 80 RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels [RFC2119]. 82 1.1. Terminology 84 +---------+------------------------------------+ 85 | Acronym | Meaning | 86 +---------+------------------------------------+ 87 | CLI | Command Line Interface | 88 | | | 89 | RPC | Remote Procedure Call | 90 | | | 91 | SNMP | Simple Network Management Protocol | 92 +---------+------------------------------------+ 94 2. Solution 96 The proper solution should address the requirement of multiple 97 responses, fragmented responses and an ability to terminate the 98 request without terminating the NETCONF session. This can be best 99 achieved at the messaging layer in NETCONF, where a single request 100 can result in multiple responses being received and way to associate 101 the multiple responses with the original request. 103 One of the suggested solutions would look like this. A request goes 104 out with the operation to perform. 106 108 110 And a reply can come back with either a as it happens 111 today or a series of "linked replies" which would look like this. 113 116 118 121 123 with the last reply looking like this. 125 128 130 When the client wants to terminate the task, it issues an to terminate the condition. Note, NETCONF currently does not 132 support this particular operation. 134 136 138 And a reply comes back acknowledging that the task was terminated. 140 141 143 145 3. IANA Considerations 147 4. Security Considerations 149 5. Acknowledgements 151 6. References 153 6.1. Normative References 155 [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 156 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 158 [RFC6241] Enns, R., Bjorklund, M., Schoenwaelder, J., and A. 159 Bierman, "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 160 6241, June 2011. 162 6.2. Informative References 164 [RFC6243] Bierman, A. and B. Lengyel, "With-defaults Capability for 165 NETCONF", RFC 6243, June 2011. 167 Author's Address 169 Mahesh Jethanandani 170 Ciena Corporation 171 3939 North 1st Street 172 San Jose, CA 95134 173 USA 175 Phone: 408.904.2160 176 Fax: 408.436.5582 177 Email: mjethanandani@gmail.com