Subject: [netmod] Provisioning in anticipation of upgrade

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:42:16 -0700

Hi -

Here's a use case I don't recall having been discussed here.

ISP plans to issue firmware / software upgrade to a node.
To minimize downtime, it wants the configuration data for the
new software version to be available in EEPROM (or whatever)
as soon as the new software is installed.  Doing this would
mean loading a configuration into the device, where that
configuration would be described by a data model different
from what the device supported at the moment.

Perhaps it's best to simply discount it as pathological, but
maybe it can help us think about what (if anything) it means
to send a configuration to a device that is based on a different
model from what the device actually "is".

Randy

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From: Phil Shafer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:00:34 -0400

"Randy Presuhn" writes:
>Doing this would

This is turn would mean the device couldn't grok anything about the
incoming config and would just write it off in the startup config
with zero checks.  When the device boots, the new sw sees the new
config.  Given that the device can't enforce any rules on this
new config, it sounds like a distinct but odd case.

In practice, leaving unknown config for a device to see on its next
boot is a fairly dangerous thing.  There's little or no error
recovery.

Thanks,
 Phil