Subject: [Netconf] comments on with-defaults-01 draft

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:17:21 -0700

Hi,

There was an important semantic change that was
made in this draft that needs to be corrected.
Sorry I did not catch it sooner.

Before, if with-defaults is set to 'true' the
agent MUST return all default data.  Now, there
is no requirement or even suggestion to support 'report-all'.
This is not acceptable.  The whole point of creating
this capability was to get the defaults from the agent.
An agent MUST support 'report-all' in order to advertise
the :with-defaults capability.

Also, I think there should be a YANG module (ietf-with-defaults.yang)
instead of an XSD in the draft.  The new 4741-bis will have
a netconf.yang module which can be augmented.  The NETCONF WG
decided to use only normative YANG starting when YANG is approved.
Unless the delay would be way too long, this document should
also use normative YANG.

Andy

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From: Phil Shafer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:47:32 -0400

Not a full review, but a couple of notes:

2.1. refers to "NETCONF <rpc-reply> messages", but I think
this is more general (like a <copy-config> to an <url>).

2.1.1 lists "Report all", "Trim", and "Explicit", but should
use "report-all", "trim", and "explicit", since 2.3 and 2.4
say "Possible method names are taken from the list in 2.1.1".

Use of the terms "methods" and "method names" is confusing, given
that 4741 uses this term to mean the element name under the <rpc>
element.  Use "modes" or some other term.

2.3 uses ":" to separate the members of the list.  It should
use "," for this, in the same way we do in rfc4741 (8.8.3).

2.3 makes is sound like "supported" doesn't need to list
all supported modes, which is surprising.  It should be
a complete list.

2.5 uses the phrase "added to the 'method-name' element.  This
phrase is new and not meaningful.  Putting it in quotes makes
it look like a string.  Better to just list the specific method
names directly, as is done in the next sentence.

The example uses "<get>" but section 2.1 says this affects
config data, not state data.

Thanks,
 Phil