Subject: Re: [Netconf] with-defaults.yang

From: Martin Bjorklund <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:20:14 +0100 (CET)

Andy Bierman <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Phil Shafer wrote:
> > Andy Bierman writes:
> >>    augment "/nc:copy-config/nc:input" {
> >>      uses WithDefaults;
> >>    }
> > Does this conflict with the existing NETCONF idea that copy-config
> > does a higher-level datastore-oriented copy, rather than one that
> > inspects the configuration nodes?  I can't find this idea called
> > out strongly enough in the RFC to matter, but I recall the idea was
> > that copy-config did a copy without regard for the content.  Does
> > this idea still exist?
> > 
> 
> AFAIK, the only mandatory copy-config operation is
> from <running/> to <startup/>, if :startup is supported.
> I think with-defaults applies in that situation.
> 
> I agree with you (in this case and in general)
> that 'feature-creep' seems to occur to NETCONF sometimes.
> It was never the intent the the target of a <copy-config>
> be a standard database, in any other use case except :startup.
> Without :url or :startup capabilities, there is nothing
> mandatory to support for <copy-config>.

I think what you call 'feature-creep' occurs when the specification
does not clearly spell out what is supposed to happen.  In this case,
the XSD allows an inline configuration, which I would assume is the
config in XML format.  This inline configuration is also shown in some
example, so I assume it is not another bug in the XSD.

The format of the result of a copy-config to a url is not specified,
but on this ML it has been assumed that an XML format is used with
e.g. the NETCONF <config> element as document root element.  But maybe
the intention was that the copy of a db to a file (url) could use any
internal format?

Regardless of which, this should be clarified in 4741bis.

/martin