The assumption of “I suspect that all the routing models will be structured 
similarly” is not correct. Very few models in routing area structure this way.

 

Regards,

 

- Xufeng

 

From: netmod [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert Wilton
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2016 1:05 PM
To: Kent Watsen <[email protected]>; netmod WG <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [netmod] OpsState Direction Impact on Recommended IETF YANG Model 
Structure

 

 

 

On 26/07/2016 21:36, Kent Watsen wrote:

 

<Rob Wilton writes>


So my thinking is that if we can't merge "foo-state" into "foo" then instead we 
should have consistent rules that explicitly state that for all IETF models 
"foo" and "foo-state" are separate trees with a consistent naming convention 
and structure.  That should hopefully allow tooling to programmatically relate 
the two separate trees together.  It may give a path to allow "foo-state" to be 
merged into "foo" in future, but once IETF has standardized 600+ models with 
separate sub-trees, I cannot see that they would get merged back together again.

What other alternatives are available?  As a WG we need to tell the other WGs 
how the IETF YANG models should be structured.

In short, unfortunately I think that we have probably already missed the 
opportunity to merge "foo" and "foo-state" subtrees together ...




</Rob Wilton>

 

 

Firstly, I’m trying to get a sense of how big a problem this foo/foo-state 
thing is.  [Note: by foo-state, I’m only referring to counters, not opstate].

RW:
By counters, I think that we also mean any config false nodes that don't 
directly represent "applied configuration", right?  E.g. is an interface 
operationally up or down.




   I know about RFC 7223, which was done out of consideration for 
system-generated interfaces, but how many other such models are there 
envisioned to be?

RW:
- Any models that augment RFC 7223 and have config false nodes will be impacted.
- I thought that quite a lot of other IETF models that are in the process of 
being standardized have a top level split between "foo" and "foo-state".  E.g 
the ISIS model (draft-ietf-isis-yang-isis-cfg-08) has this split.  I suspect 
that all the routing models will be structured similarly.
- Although it is perhaps worth pointing out that I think that the OpenConfig 
modules effectively have exactly this same issue (e.g. they have a combined 
interfaces tree keyed by config true leaves), and they pragmatically just 
ignore the issue of system created interface entries.




 Is this issue currently blocking models from progressing, or are we getting 
ourselves wrapped around a hypothetical?

RW:
I think that it is blocking models from progressing.

The current guidance for "intended vs applied" is clear.  I.e. there must not 
be "config false" leaves in the IETF YANG data models to represent "applied 
config".

But there is no clear guidance for the rest of operational state that isn't 
applied config.  The other WGs need clear guidance (effectively now) to ensure 
that they can start publishing models as RFCs.





  If RFC 7223 is an outlier, then we can address it as a special case (perhaps 
via the related-state/related-config YANG annotations).  What do you think?

RW:
Personally, I would like one common convention that applies to all IETF YANG 
models.

Idealistically I would like foo and foo-state to be merged because I think that 
will make the models easier to use and maintain in the long term, but I don't 
know if we are just too late to go in that direction.  It seems to me that the 
NETMOD WG really should try to come to a decision quite quickly on this, but I 
don't know how to encourage that.  A virtual interim on just this topic perhaps?




 

Next, regarding paths forward (assuming 7223 is not an outlier), I’m thinking 
the opposite.  I’m quite sure that we would never merge the 600+ models with 
separate subtrees back together again.  So I’m thinking we immediately merge 
foo and foo-state in all active YANG models (so that the YANG “conceptual” 
models are stable and good) *and* then we use your idea to programmatically 
generate the “foo-state” tree, presumably only when needed.  This foo-state 
tree could be generated offline by tools and provided as a second YANG module 
in drafts.  In this way, servers (opstate aware or not) can advertise if 
clients can access the foo-state tree (an opstate-aware server may still 
advertise it for business reasons, and it can ‘deprecate’ the tree when no 
longer needed).   We could do the same without tools today by just using a 
feature statement on, for instance, the interfaces-state container, but I like 
pushing for tooling upfront so that we’re guaranteed mergeability later.  
Thoughts?

RW:
So the generated "foo-state" tree would contain a copy of all config false 
nodes in the YANG schema and a "config false copy" of any config true nodes in 
the YANG schema that are required to provide parental structure for the 
descendant config false nodes.
- The Xpath expressions would also need to be adjusted, and possibly some of 
those might break (or need to be fixed by hand).
- Groupings might be a problem, but potentially they could be expanded.

Technically this solution might work, but is it possible to get everyone to 
agree that this is the right direction to go in before we spend time on this?

Thanks,
Rob





 

Kent // as a contributor




 

 

 

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