Re: NETCONF clarifications

[Phil Shafer <phil@juniper.net>]

"Peter, Christian" writes:
>We are considering to also adding the NETCONF standard to our product.

Excellent news!!

>In the RFC it's not mention about setting non-configuration data (e.g.
>setting clock time).

NETCONF allows you to define your own RPCs, with custom input
parameters (encoded in xml) and custom XML output.  So you
can do something like:

  <rpc xmlns="oh-i-forget">
    <set-clock xmlns="your-own-here">
      <format>+%y%m%d%H%M.%S</format>
      <time>0706081820.52<time>
    </set-clock>
  </rpc>

and you reply can contain whatever data you want.  We do similar
stuff in the JUNOScript API, which is available over NETCONF, as
well as our older ssl-based access method.  Check out:
  http://www.juniper.net/support/junoscript/
for details and examples.

>Is there any timeout behaviour or feedback mechanism to the client,
>when processing for a longer time (e.g. 15 minutes).

Early drafts of the NETCONF spec had the <abort/> operation from
JUNOScript, but it was tossed out for reasons I don't remember.
Without a way for the client to tell the server to stop (and the
server to acknowledge it), you are stuck.  You can make the server
implement a timeout, like;

  <rpc>
    <install-software>
      <image>/tmp/sw.tgz</image>
      <timeout>10</timeout>
    </install-software>
  </rpc>

>But are
>there any ideas of having some mechanism to attach real binary data
>(e.g. firmware)
>to a request or reply? 

We do this with an <encoding> parameter, like:

  <rpc>
    <get-file>
      <filename>core-file.tgz</filename>
      <encoding>base64</encoding>
    </get-file>
  </rpc>

The reply is something like:

  <rpc-reply>
    <file-contents>
      <base64>some-totally-awful-unreadable-and-long-stuff-here</base64>
    </file-contents>
  </rpc-reply>

This shipped in JUNOS 8.3, for which the docs are not yet available on
the public web site.  If you want the full details, holler and I'll
get them for you.

Thanks,
 Phil

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