James Carlson wrote:
> Michael Schuster writes:
>> * import/export: the initial requirement was to have a means to take the
>> current configuration of the load balancer ("ilbadm export <file>"),
>> transport it to another machine by whatever means and re-apply ("ilbadm
>> import <file>") it there.
>>
>> Q1: Would people agree that this requirement makes sense?
>
> It's a little surprising to me. It sounds a bit like you're
> reinventing "svccfg export" and "svccfg import," and I'm not sure why
> or how far down that path you really want to go.
that would imply that we're storing the information you're referring to
within the SMF framework ... which is not the case. As of now, all SMF does
is start and stop ilbd, maybe store the location of the persistent config
(file).
> Should ilbadm have its own profile mechanism?
what exactly do you mean by that?
> What about
> customization at install time (as with jumpstart scripts)? Snapshot
> and rollback?
has not been considered.
>> Q1a: if yes, would you agree that the format we use here is of secondary
>> concern, ie. private?
>
> One concern would be how you manage to make sure that the data are
> acceptable when transported from one system to another. Suppose
> you're transferring configuration because you're upgrading to a new
> system ... do the two have to have exactly the same software version?
> What happens if they don't? Does anything check versioning?
>
> Ordinarily, protocols like this (and a file transported between
> machines sounds like a "protocol" to me) are made at least Committed
> Private, meaning that we don't document it, but we guarantee backward
> compatibility between versions. Is that what's intended?
We're trying to find out whether that's desired ... your questions seem to
indicate "yes" to me.
> Another issue would be parameterization: if you transfer configuration
> data from one system to another, how much needs to be the same? What
> if the interfaces have different names or a different subnet is in
> some part of the configuration? Are users expected to edit this file
> in transit?
not initially, but again your questions indicate that that would be
desired, which in turn points to a well-documented format.
Michael
--
Michael Schuster http://blogs.sun.com/recursion
Recursion, n.: see 'Recursion'
