Network Working Group R. Enns, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4741 Juniper Networks
Category: Standards Track December 2006
NETCONF Configuration Protocol
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2006).
Abstract
The Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) defined in this document
provides mechanisms to install, manipulate, and delete the
configuration of network devices. It uses an Extensible Markup
Language (XML)-based data encoding for the configuration data as well
as the protocol messages. The NETCONF protocol operations are
realized on top of a simple Remote Procedure Call (RPC) layer.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................5
1.1. Protocol Overview ..........................................6
1.2. Capabilities ...............................................7
1.3. Separation of Configuration and State Data .................7
2. Transport Protocol Requirements .................................8
2.1. Connection-Oriented Operation ..............................9
2.2. Authentication, Integrity, and Confidentiality .............9
2.3. Authentication .............................................9
2.4. Mandatory Transport Protocol ..............................10
3. XML Considerations .............................................10
3.1. Namespace .................................................10
3.2. No Document Type Declarations .............................10
4. RPC Model ......................................................10
4.1. Element .............................................10
4.2. Element .......................................12
4.3. Element .......................................12
4.4. Element ..............................................16
4.5. Pipelining ................................................16
5. Configuration Model ............................................16
5.1. Configuration Datastores ..................................16
5.2. Data Modeling .............................................17
6. Subtree Filtering ..............................................17
6.1. Overview ..................................................17
6.2. Subtree Filter Components .................................18
6.2.1. Namespace Selection ................................18
6.2.2. Attribute Match Expressions ........................19
6.2.3. Containment Nodes ..................................19
6.2.4. Selection Nodes ....................................20
6.2.5. Content Match Nodes ................................20
6.3. Subtree Filter Processing .................................22
6.4. Subtree Filtering Examples ................................22
6.4.1. No Filter ..........................................22
6.4.2. Empty Filter .......................................23
6.4.3. Select the Entire Subtree ..................23
6.4.4. Select All Elements within the
Subtree ....................................25
6.4.5. One Specific Entry ..........................26
6.4.6. Specific Elements from a Specific Entry .....27
6.4.7. Multiple Subtrees ..................................28
6.4.8. Elements with Attribute Naming .....................29
7. Protocol Operations ............................................31
7.1. ..............................................31
7.2. .............................................34
7.3. .............................................39
7.4. ...........................................41
7.5. ....................................................42
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7.6. ..................................................44
7.7. .....................................................45
7.8. ...........................................47
7.9. ............................................48
8. Capabilities ...................................................49
8.1. Capabilities Exchange .....................................49
8.2. Writable-Running Capability ...............................50
8.2.1. Description ........................................50
8.2.2. Dependencies .......................................50
8.2.3. Capability Identifier ..............................50
8.2.4. New Operations .....................................51
8.2.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............51
8.3. Candidate Configuration Capability ........................51
8.3.1. Description ........................................51
8.3.2. Dependencies .......................................52
8.3.3. Capability Identifier ..............................52
8.3.4. New Operations .....................................52
8.3.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............53
8.4. Confirmed Commit Capability ...............................55
8.4.1. Description ........................................55
8.4.2. Dependencies .......................................55
8.4.3. Capability Identifier ..............................56
8.4.4. New Operations .....................................56
8.4.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............56
8.5. Rollback on Error Capability ..............................57
8.5.1. Description ........................................57
8.5.2. Dependencies .......................................57
8.5.3. Capability Identifier ..............................57
8.5.4. New Operations .....................................57
8.5.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............57
8.6. Validate Capability .......................................58
8.6.1. Description ........................................58
8.6.2. Dependencies .......................................58
8.6.3. Capability Identifier ..............................58
8.6.4. New Operations .....................................58
8.7. Distinct Startup Capability ...............................60
8.7.1. Description ........................................60
8.7.2. Dependencies .......................................60
8.7.3. Capability Identifier ..............................60
8.7.4. New Operations .....................................60
8.7.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............60
8.8. URL Capability ............................................61
8.8.1. Description ........................................61
8.8.2. Dependencies .......................................61
8.8.3. Capability Identifier ..............................62
8.8.4. New Operations .....................................62
8.8.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............62
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8.9. XPath Capability ..........................................63
8.9.1. Description ........................................63
8.9.2. Dependencies .......................................63
8.9.3. Capability Identifier ..............................63
8.9.4. New Operations .....................................63
8.9.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............63
9. Security Considerations ........................................64
10. IANA Considerations ...........................................66
10.1. NETCONF XML Namespace ....................................66
10.2. NETCONF XML Schema .......................................66
10.3. NETCONF Capability URNs ..................................66
11. Authors and Acknowledgements ..................................68
12. References ....................................................68
12.1. Normative References .....................................68
12.2. Informative References ...................................69
Appendix A. NETCONF Error List ....................................70
Appendix B. XML Schema for NETCONF RPC and Protocol Operations ....74
Appendix C. Capability Template ...................................86
C.1. capability-name (template) ................................86
C.1.1. Overview ...........................................86
C.1.2. Dependencies .......................................86
C.1.3. Capability Identifier ..............................86
C.1.4. New Operations .....................................86
C.1.5. Modifications to Existing Operations ...............86
C.1.6. Interactions with Other Capabilities ...............86
Appendix D. Configuring Multiple Devices with NETCONF ............87
D.1. Operations on Individual Devices ..........................87
D.1.1. Acquiring the Configuration Lock ...................87
D.1.2. Loading the Update .................................88
D.1.3. Validating the Incoming Configuration ..............89
D.1.4. Checkpointing the Running Configuration ............89
D.1.5. Changing the Running Configuration .................90
D.1.6. Testing the New Configuration ......................91
D.1.7. Making the Change Permanent ........................91
D.1.8. Releasing the Configuration Lock ...................92
D.2. Operations on Multiple Devices ............................92
Appendix E. Deferred Features .....................................93
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1. Introduction
The NETCONF protocol defines a simple mechanism through which a
network device can be managed, configuration data information can be
retrieved, and new configuration data can be uploaded and
manipulated. The protocol allows the device to expose a full, formal
application programming interface (API). Applications can use this
straightforward API to send and receive full and partial
configuration data sets.
The NETCONF protocol uses a remote procedure call (RPC) paradigm. A
client encodes an RPC in XML [1] and sends it to a server using a
secure, connection-oriented session. The server responds with a
reply encoded in XML. The contents of both the request and the
response are fully described in XML DTDs or XML schemas, or both,
allowing both parties to recognize the syntax constraints imposed on
the exchange.
A key aspect of NETCONF is that it allows the functionality of the
management protocol to closely mirror the native functionality of the
device. This reduces implementation costs and allows timely access
to new features. In addition, applications can access both the
syntactic and semantic content of the device's native user interface.
NETCONF allows a client to discover the set of protocol extensions
supported by a server. These "capabilities" permit the client to
adjust its behavior to take advantage of the features exposed by the
device. The capability definitions can be easily extended in a
noncentralized manner. Standard and non-standard capabilities can be
defined with semantic and syntactic rigor. Capabilities are
discussed in Section 8.
The NETCONF protocol is a building block in a system of automated
configuration. XML is the lingua franca of interchange, providing a
flexible but fully specified encoding mechanism for hierarchical
content. NETCONF can be used in concert with XML-based
transformation technologies, such as XSLT [8], to provide a system
for automated generation of full and partial configurations. The
system can query one or more databases for data about networking
topologies, links, policies, customers, and services. This data can
be transformed using one or more XSLT scripts from a task-oriented,
vendor-independent data schema into a form that is specific to the
vendor, product, operating system, and software release. The
resulting data can be passed to the device using the NETCONF
protocol.
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The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3].
1.1. Protocol Overview
NETCONF uses a simple RPC-based mechanism to facilitate communication
between a client and a server. The client can be a script or
application typically running as part of a network manager. The
server is typically a network device. The terms "device" and
"server" are used interchangeably in this document, as are "client"
and "application".
A NETCONF session is the logical connection between a network
administrator or network configuration application and a network
device. A device MUST support at least one NETCONF session and
SHOULD support multiple sessions. Global configuration attributes
can be changed during any authorized session, and the effects are
visible in all sessions. Session-specific attributes affect only the
session in which they are changed.
NETCONF can be conceptually partitioned into four layers:
Layer Example
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
(4) | Content | | Configuration data |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
| |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
(3) | Operations | | , |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
| |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
(2) | RPC | | , |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
| |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
(1) | Transport | | BEEP, SSH, SSL, console |
| Protocol | | |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------+
1. The transport protocol layer provides a communication path
between the client and server. NETCONF can be layered over any
transport protocol that provides a set of basic requirements.
Section 2 discusses these requirements.
2. The RPC layer provides a simple, transport-independent framing
mechanism for encoding RPCs. Section 4 documents this protocol.
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3. The operations layer defines a set of base operations invoked as
RPC methods with XML-encoded parameters. Section 7 details the
list of base operations.
4. The content layer is outside the scope of this document. Given
the current proprietary nature of the configuration data being
manipulated, the specification of this content depends on the
NETCONF implementation. It is expected that a separate effort to
specify a standard data definition language and standard content
will be undertaken.
1.2. Capabilities
A NETCONF capability is a set of functionality that supplements the
base NETCONF specification. The capability is identified by a
uniform resource identifier (URI). These URIs should follow the
guidelines as described in Section 8.
Capabilities augment the base operations of the device, describing
both additional operations and the content allowed inside operations.
The client can discover the server's capabilities and use any
additional operations, parameters, and content defined by those
capabilities.
The capability definition may name one or more dependent
capabilities. To support a capability, the server MUST support any
capabilities upon which it depends.
Section 8 defines the capabilities exchange that allows the client to
discover the server's capabilities. Section 8 also lists the set of
capabilities defined in this document.
Additional capabilities can be defined at any time in external
documents, allowing the set of capabilities to expand over time.
Standards bodies may define standardized capabilities, and
implementations may define proprietary ones. A capability URI MUST
sufficiently distinguish the naming authority to avoid naming
collisions.
1.3. Separation of Configuration and State Data
The information that can be retrieved from a running system is
separated into two classes, configuration data and state data.
Configuration data is the set of writable data that is required to
transform a system from its initial default state into its current
state. State data is the additional data on a system that is not
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configuration data such as read-only status information and collected
statistics. When a device is performing configuration operations, a
number of problems would arise if state data were included:
o Comparisons of configuration data sets would be dominated by
irrelevant entries such as different statistics.
o Incoming data could contain nonsensical requests, such as attempts
to write read-only data.
o The data sets would be large.
o Archived data could contain values for read-only data items,
complicating the processing required to restore archived data.
To account for these issues, the NETCONF protocol recognizes the
difference between configuration data and state data and provides
operations for each. The operation retrieves
configuration data only, while the operation retrieves
configuration and state data.
Note that the NETCONF protocol is focused on the information required
to get the device into its desired running state. The inclusion of
other important, persistent data is implementation specific. For
example, user files and databases are not treated as configuration
data by the NETCONF protocol.
If a local database of user authentication data is stored on the
device, whether it is included in configuration data is an
implementation-dependent matter.
2. Transport Protocol Requirements
NETCONF uses an RPC-based communication paradigm. A client sends a
series of one or more RPC request operations, which cause the server
to respond with a corresponding series of RPC replies.
The NETCONF protocol can be layered on any transport protocol that
provides the required set of functionality. It is not bound to any
particular transport protocol, but allows a mapping to define how it
can be implemented over any specific protocol.
The transport protocol MUST provide a mechanism to indicate the
session type (client or server) to the NETCONF protocol layer.
This section details the characteristics that NETCONF requires from
the underlying transport protocol.
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2.1. Connection-Oriented Operation
NETCONF is connection-oriented, requiring a persistent connection
between peers. This connection must provide reliable, sequenced data
delivery.
NETCONF connections are long-lived, persisting between protocol
operations. This allows the client to make changes to the state of
the connection that will persist for the lifetime of the connection.
For example, authentication information specified for a connection
remains in effect until the connection is closed.
In addition, resources requested from the server for a particular
connection MUST be automatically released when the connection closes,
making failure recovery simpler and more robust. For example, when a
lock is acquired by a client, the lock persists until either it is
explicitly released or the server determines that the connection has
been terminated. If a connection is terminated while the client
holds a lock, the server can perform any appropriate recovery. The
lock operation is further discussed in Section 7.5.
2.2. Authentication, Integrity, and Confidentiality
NETCONF connections must provide authentication, data integrity, and
confidentiality. NETCONF depends on the transport protocol for this
capability. A NETCONF peer assumes that appropriate levels of
security and confidentiality are provided independently of this
document. For example, connections may be encrypted in TLS [9] or
SSH [10], depending on the underlying protocol.
2.3. Authentication
NETCONF connections must be authenticated. The transport protocol is
responsible for authentication. The peer assumes that the
connection's authentication information has been validated by the
underlying protocol using sufficiently trustworthy mechanisms and
that the peer's identity has been sufficiently proven.
One goal of NETCONF is to provide a programmatic interface to the
device that closely follows the functionality of the device's native
interface. Therefore, it is expected that the underlying protocol
uses existing authentication mechanisms defined by the device. For
example, a device that supports RADIUS [11] should allow the use of
RADIUS to authenticate NETCONF sessions.
The authentication process should result in an identity whose
permissions are known to the device. These permissions MUST be
enforced during the remainder of the NETCONF session.
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2.4. Mandatory Transport Protocol
A NETCONF implementation MUST support the SSH transport protocol
mapping [4].
3. XML Considerations
XML serves as the encoding format for NETCONF, allowing complex
hierarchical data to be expressed in a text format that can be read,
saved, and manipulated with both traditional text tools and tools
specific to XML.
This section discusses a small number of XML-related considerations
pertaining to NETCONF.
3.1. Namespace
All NETCONF protocol elements are defined in the following namespace:
urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0
NETCONF capability names MUST be URIs [5]. NETCONF capabilities are
discussed in Section 8.
3.2. No Document Type Declarations
Document type declarations MUST NOT appear in NETCONF content.
4. RPC Model
The NETCONF protocol uses an RPC-based communication model. NETCONF
peers use and elements to provide transport
protocol-independent framing of NETCONF requests and responses.
4.1. Element
The element is used to enclose a NETCONF request sent from the
client to the server.
The element has a mandatory attribute "message-id", which is an
arbitrary string chosen by the sender of the RPC that will commonly
encode a monotonically increasing integer. The receiver of the RPC
does not decode or interpret this string but simply saves it to be
used as a "message-id" attribute in any resulting
message. For example:
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If additional attributes are present in an element, a NETCONF
peer MUST return them unmodified in the element.
The name and parameters of an RPC are encoded as the contents of the
element. The name of the RPC is an element directly inside the
element, and any parameters are encoded inside this element.
The following example invokes a method called , which
has two parameters, , with a value of "14", and
, with a value of "fred":
14fred
The following example invokes a method with a
parameter of "27606-0100":
27606-0100
The following example invokes the NETCONF method with no
parameters:
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4.2. Element
The message is sent in response to an operation.
The element has a mandatory attribute "message-id", which
is equal to the "message-id" attribute of the for which this is
a response.
A NETCONF peer MUST also return any additional attributes included in
the element unmodified in the element.
The response name and response data are encoded as the contents of
the element. The name of the reply is an element
directly inside the element, and any data is encoded
inside this element.
For example:
The following element invokes the NETCONF method and
includes an additional attribute called "user-id". Note that the
"user-id" attribute is not in the NETCONF namespace. The returned
element returns the "user-id" attribute, as well as the
requested content.
4.3. Element
The element is sent in messages if an error
occurs during the processing of an request.
If a server encounters multiple errors during the processing of an
request, the MAY contain multiple
elements. However, a server is not required to detect or report more
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than one element, if a request contains multiple errors.
A server is not required to check for particular error conditions in
a specific sequence. A server MUST return an element if
any error conditions occur during processing and SHOULD return an
element if any warning conditions occur during
processing.
A server MUST NOT return application-level- or data-model-specific
error information in an element for which the client does
not have sufficient access rights.
The element includes the following information:
error-type: Defines the conceptual layer that the error occurred.
Enumeration. One of:
* transport
* rpc
* protocol
* application
error-tag: Contains a string identifying the error condition. See
Appendix A for allowed values.
error-severity: Contains a string identifying the error severity, as
determined by the device. One of:
* error
* warning
error-app-tag: Contains a string identifying the data-model-specific
or implementation-specific error condition, if one exists. This
element will not be present if no appropriate application error
tag can be associated with a particular error condition.
error-path: Contains the absolute XPath [2] expression identifying
the element path to the node that is associated with the error
being reported in a particular rpc-error element. This element
will not be present if no appropriate payload element can be
associated with a particular error condition, or if the
'bad-element' QString returned in the 'error-info' container is
sufficient to identify the node associated with the error. When
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the XPath expression is interpreted, the set of namespace
declarations are those in scope on the rpc-error element,
including the default namespace.
error-message: Contains a string suitable for human display that
describes the error condition. This element will not be present
if no appropriate message is provided for a particular error
condition. This element SHOULD include an xml:lang attribute as
defined in [1] and discussed in [12].
error-info: Contains protocol- or data-model-specific error content.
This element will not be present if no such error content is
provided for a particular error condition. The list in Appendix A
defines any mandatory error-info content for each error. After
any protocol-mandated content, a data model definition may mandate
that certain application-layer error information be included in
the error-info container. An implementation may include
additional elements to provide extended and/or implementation-
specific debugging information.
Appendix A enumerates the standard NETCONF errors.
Example:
An error is returned if an element is received without a
message-id attribute. Note that only in this case is it
acceptable for the NETCONF peer to omit the message-id attribute
in the element.
rpcmissing-attributeerrormessage-idrpc
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The following illustrates the case of returning
multiple elements.
Note that the data models used in the examples in this section use
the element to distinguish between multiple instances of
the element.
applicationinvalid-valueerror
MTU value 25000 is not within range 256..9192
Ethernet0/025000applicationinvalid-valueerror
Invalid IP address for interface Ethernet1/0
Ethernet1/01.424
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4.4. Element
The element is sent in messages if no errors or
warnings occurred during the processing of an request. For
example:
4.5. Pipelining
NETCONF requests MUST be processed serially by the managed
device. Additional requests MAY be sent before previous ones
have been completed. The managed device MUST send responses only in
the order the requests were received.
5. Configuration Model
NETCONF provides an initial set of operations and a number of
capabilities that can be used to extend the base. NETCONF peers
exchange device capabilities when the session is initiated as
described in Section 8.1.
5.1. Configuration Datastores
NETCONF defines the existence of one or more configuration datastores
and allows configuration operations on them. A configuration
datastore is defined as the complete set of configuration data that
is required to get a device from its initial default state into a
desired operational state. The configuration datastore does not
include state data or executive commands.
Only the configuration datastore is present in the base
model. Additional configuration datastores may be defined by
capabilities. Such configuration datastores are available only on
devices that advertise the capabilities.
o Running: The complete configuration currently active on the
network device. Only one configuration datastore of this type
exists on the device, and it is always present. NETCONF protocol
operations refer to this datastore using the element.
The capabilities in Sections 8.3 and 8.7 define the and
configuration datastores, respectively.
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5.2. Data Modeling
Data modeling and content issues are outside the scope of the NETCONF
protocol. An assumption is made that the device's data model is
well-known to the application and that both parties are aware of
issues such as the layout, containment, keying, lookup, replacement,
and management of the data, as well as any other constraints imposed
by the data model.
NETCONF carries configuration data inside the element that
is specific to device's data model. The protocol treats the contents
of that element as opaque data. The device uses capabilities to
announce the set of data models that the device implements. The
capability definition details the operation and constraints imposed
by data model.
Devices and managers may support multiple data models, including both
standard and proprietary data models.
6. Subtree Filtering
6.1. Overview
XML subtree filtering is a mechanism that allows an application to
select particular XML subtrees to include in the for a
or operation. A small set of filters for
inclusion, simple content exact-match, and selection is provided,
which allows some useful, but also very limited, selection
mechanisms. The agent does not need to utilize any data-model-
specific semantics during processing, allowing for simple and
centralized implementation strategies.
Conceptually, a subtree filter is comprised of zero or more element
subtrees, which represent the filter selection criteria. At each
containment level within a subtree, the set of sibling nodes is
logically processed by the server to determine if its subtree and
path of elements to the root are included in the filter output.
All elements present in a particular subtree within a filter must
match associated nodes present in the server's conceptual data model.
XML namespaces may be specified (via 'xmlns' declarations) within the
filter data model. If they are, the declared namespace must first
exactly match a namespace supported by the server. Note that prefix
values for qualified namespaces are not relevant when comparing
filter elements to elements in the underlying data model. Only data
associated with a specified namespace will be included in the filter
output.
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Each node specified in a subtree filter represents an inclusive
filter. Only associated nodes in underlying data model(s) within the
specified configuration datastore on the server are selected by the
filter. A node must exactly match the namespace and hierarchy of
elements given in the filter data, except that the filter absolute
path name is adjusted to start from the layer below .
Response messages contain only the subtrees selected by the filter.
Any selection criteria that were present in the request, within a
particular selected subtree, are also included in the response. Note
that some elements expressed in the filter as leaf nodes will be
expanded (i.e., subtrees included) in the filter output. Specific
data instances are not duplicated in the response in the event that
the request contains multiple filter subtree expressions that select
the same data.
6.2. Subtree Filter Components
A subtree filter is comprised of XML elements and their XML
attributes. There are five types of components that may be present
in a subtree filter:
o Namespace Selection
o Attribute Match Expressions
o Containment Nodes
o Selection Nodes
o Content Match Nodes
6.2.1. Namespace Selection
If namespaces are used, then the filter output will only include
elements from the specified namespace. A namespace is considered to
match (for filter purposes) if the content of the 'xmlns' attributes
are the same in the filter and the underlying data model. Note that
namespace selection cannot be used by itself. At least one element
must be specified in the filter any elements to be included in the
filter output.
Example:
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In this example, the element is a selection node, and only this
node and any child nodes (from the underlying data model) in the
'http://example.com/schema/1.2/config' namespace will be included in
the filter output.
6.2.2. Attribute Match Expressions
An attribute that appears in a subtree filter is part of an
"attribute match expression". Any number of (unqualified or
qualified) XML attributes may be present in any type of filter node.
In addition to the selection criteria normally applicable to that
node, the selected data must have matching values for every attribute
specified in the node. If an element is not defined to include a
specified attribute, then it is not selected in the filter output.
Example:
In this example, the , , and elements
are containment nodes, and 'ifName' is an attribute match expression.
Only 'interface' nodes in the 'http://example.com/schema/1.2/config'
namespace that have an 'ifName' attribute with the value 'eth0' and
occur within 'interfaces' nodes within 'top' nodes will be included
in the filter output.
6.2.3. Containment Nodes
Nodes that contain child elements within a subtree filter are called
"containment nodes". Each child element can be any type of node,
including another containment node. For each containment node
specified in a subtree filter, all data model instances that exactly
match the specified namespaces, element hierarchy, and any attribute
match expressions are included in the filter output.
Example:
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In this example, the element is a containment node.
6.2.4. Selection Nodes
An empty leaf node within a filter is called a "selection node", and
it represents an "explicit selection" filter on the underlying data
model. Presence of any selection nodes within a set of sibling nodes
will cause the filter to select the specified subtree(s) and suppress
automatic selection of the entire set of sibling nodes in the
underlying data model. For filtering purposes, an empty leaf node
can be declared either with an empty tag (e.g., ) or with
explicit start and end tags (e.g., ). Any whitespace
characters are ignored in this form.
Example:
In this example, the element is a containment node, and the
element is a selection node. Only 'users' nodes in the
'http://example.com/schema/1.2/config' namespace that occur within a
'top' element that is the root of the configuration datastore will be
included in the filter output.
6.2.5. Content Match Nodes
A leaf node that contains simple content is called a "content match
node". It is used to select some or all of its sibling nodes for
filter output, and it represents an exact-match filter on the leaf
node element content. The following constraints apply to content
match nodes:
o A content match node must not contain nested elements (i.e., must
resolve to a simpleType in the XML Schema Definition (XSD)).
o Multiple content match nodes (i.e., sibling nodes) are logically
combined in an "AND" expression.
o Filtering of mixed content is not supported.
o Filtering of list content is not supported.
o Filtering of whitespace-only content is not supported.
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o A content match node must contain non-whitespace characters. An
empty element (e.g., ) will be interpreted as a
selection node (e.g., ).
o Leading and trailing whitespace characters are ignored, but any
whitespace characters within a block of text characters are not
ignored or modified.
If all specified sibling content match nodes in a subtree filter
expression are 'true', then the filter output nodes are selected in
the following manner:
o Each content match node in the sibling set is included in the
filter output.
o If any containment nodes are present in the sibling set, then they
are processed further and included if any nested filter criteria
are also met.
o If any selection nodes are present in the sibling set, then all of
them are included in the filter output.
o Otherwise (i.e., there are no selection or containment nodes in
the filter sibling set), all the nodes defined at this level in
the underlying data model (and their subtrees, if any) are
returned in the filter output.
If any of the sibling content match node tests are 'false', then no
further filter processing is performed on that sibling set, and none
of the sibling subtrees are selected by the filter, including the
content match node(s).
Example:
fred
In this example, the and nodes are both containment
nodes, and is a content match node. Since no sibling nodes of
are specified (and therefore no containment or selection
nodes), all of the sibling nodes of are returned in the filter
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output. Only 'user' nodes in the
'http://example.com/schema/1.2/config' namespace that match the
element hierarchy and for which the element is equal to 'fred'
will be included in the filter output.
6.3. Subtree Filter Processing
The filter output (the set of selected nodes) is initially empty.
Each subtree filter can contain one or more data model fragments,
which represent portions of the data model that should be selected
(with all child nodes) in the filter output.
Each subtree data fragment is compared by the server to the internal
data models supported by the server. If the entire subtree data-
fragment filter (starting from the root to the innermost element
specified in the filter) exactly matches a corresponding portion of
the supported data model, then that node and all its children are
included in the result data.
The server processes all nodes with the same parent node (sibling
set) together, starting from the root to the leaf nodes. The root
elements in the filter are considered in the same sibling set
(assuming they are in the same namespace), even though they do not
have a common parent.
For each sibling set, the server determines which nodes are included
(or potentially included) in the filter output, and which sibling
subtrees are excluded (pruned) from the filter output. The server
first determines which types of nodes are present in the sibling set
and processes the nodes according to the rules for their type. If
any nodes in the sibling set are selected, then the process is
recursively applied to the sibling sets of each selected node. The
algorithm continues until all sibling sets in all subtrees specified
in the filter have been processed.
6.4. Subtree Filtering Examples
6.4.1. No Filter
Leaving out the filter on the get operation returns the entire data
model.
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6.4.2. Empty Filter
An empty filter will select nothing because no content match or
selection nodes are present. This is not an error. The filter type
attribute used in these examples is discussed further in Section 7.1.
6.4.3. Select the Entire Subtree
The filter in this example contains one selection node (), so
just that subtree is selected by the filter. This example represents
the fully-populated data model in most of the filter examples
that follow. In a real data model, the would not
likely be returned with the list of users for a particular host or
network.
NOTE: The filtering and configuration examples used in this document
appear in the namespace "http://example.com/schema/1.2/config". The
root element of this namespace is . The element and its
descendents represent an example configuration data model only.
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rootsuperuserCharlie Root11fredadminFred Flintstone22barneyadminBarney Rubble23
The following filter request would have produced the same result, but
only because the container defines one child element
().
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6.4.4. Select All Elements within the Subtree
This filter contains two containment nodes (, ) and one
selector node (). All instances of the element in the
same sibling set are selected in the filter output. The manager may
need to know that is used as an instance identifier in this
particular data structure, but the server does not need to know that
meta-data in order to process the request.
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rootfredbarney
6.4.5. One Specific Entry
This filter contains two containment nodes (, ) and one
content match node (). All instances of the sibling set
containing for which the value of equals "fred" are
selected in the filter output.
fredfredadminFred Flintstone
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22
6.4.6. Specific Elements from a Specific Entry
This filter contains two containment nodes (, ), one
content match node (), and two selector nodes (,
). All instances of the and elements
in the same sibling set containing for which the value of
equals "fred" are selected in the filter output. The
element is not included because the sibling set
contains selection nodes.
fredfredadmin
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Fred Flintstone
6.4.7. Multiple Subtrees
This filter contains three subtrees (name=root, fred, barney).
The "root" subtree filter contains two containment nodes (,
), one content match node (), and one selector node
(). The subtree selection criteria is met, and just
the company-info subtree for "root" is selected in the filter output.
The "fred" subtree filter contains three containment nodes (,
, ), one content match node (), and one
selector node (). The subtree selection criteria is met, and
just the element within the company-info subtree for "fred" is
selected in the filter output.
The "barney" subtree filter contains three containment nodes
(, , ), two content match nodes (,
), and one selector node (). The subtree selection
criteria is not met because user "barney" is not a "superuser", and
the entire subtree for "barney" (including its parent entry)
is excluded from the filter output.
rootfred
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barneysuperuserroot11fred2
6.4.8. Elements with Attribute Naming
In this example, the filter contains one containment node
(), one attribute match expression (ifName), and one
selector node (). All instances of the
subtree that have an ifName attribute equal to "eth0" are selected in
the filter output. The filter data elements and attributes must be
qualified because the ifName attribute will not be considered part of
the 'schema/1.2' namespace if it is unqualified.
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45621774344
If ifName were a child node instead of an attribute, then the
following request would produce similar results.
eth0
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7. Protocol Operations
The NETCONF protocol provides a small set of low-level operations to
manage device configurations and retrieve device state information.
The base protocol provides operations to retrieve, configure, copy,
and delete configuration datastores. Additional operations are
provided, based on the capabilities advertised by the device.
The base protocol includes the following protocol operations:
o get
o get-config
o edit-config
o copy-config
o delete-config
o lock
o unlock
o close-session
o kill-session
A protocol operation may fail for various reasons, including
"operation not supported". An initiator should not assume that any
operation will always succeed. The return values in any RPC reply
should be checked for error responses.
The syntax and XML encoding of the protocol operations are formally
defined in the XML schema in Appendix B. The following sections
describe the semantics of each protocol operation.
7.1.
Description:
Retrieve all or part of a specified configuration.
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Parameters:
source:
Name of the configuration datastore being queried, such as
.
filter:
The filter element identifies the portions of the device
configuration to retrieve. If this element is unspecified, the
entire configuration is returned.
The filter element may optionally contain a "type" attribute.
This attribute indicates the type of filtering syntax used
within the filter element. The default filtering mechanism in
NETCONF is referred to as subtree filtering and is described in
Section 6. The value "subtree" explicitly identifies this type
of filtering.
If the NETCONF peer supports the :xpath capability
(Section 8.9), the value "xpath" may be used to indicate that
the select attribute on the filter element contains an XPath
expression.
Positive Response:
If the device can satisfy the request, the server sends an
element containing a element with the results
of the query.
Negative Response:
An element is included in the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example: To retrieve the entire subtree:
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rootsuperuserCharlie Root11
If the configuration is available in multiple formats, such as XML
and text, an XML namespace can be used to specify which format is
desired. In the following example, the client uses a specific
element () in a specific namespace to indicate to the
server the desire to receive the configuration in an alternative
format. The server may support any number of distinct formats or
views into the configuration data, with the client using the
parameter to select between them.
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Section 6 contains additional examples of subtree filtering.
7.2.
Description:
The operation loads all or part of a specified
configuration to the specified target configuration. This
operation allows the new configuration to be expressed in several
ways, such as using a local file, a remote file, or inline. If
the target configuration does not exist, it will be created. If a
NETCONF peer supports the :url capability (Section 8.8), the
element can appear instead of the parameter and should
identify a local configuration file.
The device analyzes the source and target configurations and
performs the requested changes. The target configuration is not
necessarily replaced, as with the message. Instead,
the target configuration is changed in accordance with the
source's data and requested operations.
Attributes:
operation:
Elements in the subtree may contain an "operation"
attribute. The attribute identifies the point in the
configuration to perform the operation and MAY appear on
multiple elements throughout the subtree.
If the operation attribute is not specified, the configuration
is merged into the configuration datastore.
The operation attribute has one of the following values:
merge: The configuration data identified by the element
containing this attribute is merged with the configuration
at the corresponding level in the configuration datastore
identified by the target parameter. This is the default
behavior.
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replace: The configuration data identified by the element
containing this attribute replaces any related configuration
in the configuration datastore identified by the target
parameter. Unlike a operation, which replaces
the entire target configuration, only the configuration
actually present in the config parameter is affected.
create: The configuration data identified by the element
containing this attribute is added to the configuration if
and only if the configuration data does not already exist on
the device. If the configuration data exists, an
element is returned with an value of
data-exists.
delete: The configuration data identified by the element
containing this attribute is deleted in the configuration
datastore identified by the target parameter.
Parameters:
target:
Name of the configuration datastore being edited, such as
or .
default-operation:
Selects the default operation (as described in the "operation"
attribute) for this request. The default value
for the default-operation parameter is "merge".
The default-operation parameter is optional, but if provided,
it must have one of the following values:
merge: The configuration data in the parameter is
merged with the configuration at the corresponding level in
the target datastore. This is the default behavior.
replace: The configuration data in the parameter
completely replaces the configuration in the target
datastore. This is useful for loading previously saved
configuration data.
none: The target datastore is unaffected by the configuration
in the parameter, unless and until the incoming
configuration data uses the "operation" attribute to request
a different operation. If the configuration in the
parameter contains data for which there is not a
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corresponding level in the target datastore, an
is returned with an value of data-missing.
Using "none" allows operations like "delete" to avoid
unintentionally creating the parent hierarchy of the element
to be deleted.
test-option:
The test-option element may be specified only if the device
advertises the :validate capability (Section 8.6).
The test-option element has one of the following values:
test-then-set: Perform a validation test before attempting to
set. If validation errors occur, do not perform the
operation. This is the default test-option.
set: Perform a set without a validation test first.
error-option:
The error-option element has one of the following values:
stop-on-error: Abort the edit-config operation on first error.
This is the default error-option.
continue-on-error: Continue to process configuration data on
error; error is recorded, and negative response is generated
if any errors occur.
rollback-on-error: If an error condition occurs such that an
error severity element is generated, the server
will stop processing the edit-config operation and restore
the specified configuration to its complete state at the
start of this edit-config operation. This option requires
the server to support the :rollback-on-error capability
described in Section 8.5.
config:
A hierarchy of configuration data as defined by one of the
device's data models. The contents MUST be placed in an
appropriate namespace, to allow the device to detect the
appropriate data model, and the contents MUST follow the
constraints of that data model, as defined by its capability
definition. Capabilities are discussed in Section 8.
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Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent containing an element.
Negative Response:
An response is sent if the request cannot be completed
for any reason.
Example:
The examples in this section utilize a simple data
model, in which multiple instances of the 'interface' element may
be present, and an instance is distinguished by the 'name' element
within each 'interface' element.
Set the MTU to 1500 on an interface named "Ethernet0/0" in the
running configuration:
Ethernet0/01500
Add an interface named "Ethernet0/0" to the running configuration,
replacing any previous interface with that name:
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Ethernet0/01500192.0.2.424
Delete the configuration for an interface named "Ethernet0/0" from
the running configuration:
noneEthernet0/0
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Delete interface 192.0.2.4 from an OSPF area (other interfaces
configured in the same area are unaffected):
none0.0.0.0192.0.2.4
7.3.
Description:
Create or replace an entire configuration datastore with the
contents of another complete configuration datastore. If the
target datastore exists, it is overwritten. Otherwise, a new one
is created, if allowed.
If a NETCONF peer supports the :url capability (Section 8.8), the
element can appear as the or parameter.
Even if it advertises the :writable-running capability, a device
may choose not to support the configuration datastore
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as the parameter of a operation. A device
may choose not to support remote-to-remote copy operations, where
both the and parameters use the element.
If the source and target parameters identify the same URL or
configuration datastore, an error MUST be returned with an error-
tag containing invalid-value.
Parameters:
target:
Name of the configuration datastore to use as the destination
of the copy operation.
source:
Name of the configuration datastore to use as the source of the
copy operation or the element containing the
configuration subtree to copy.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent that includes an element.
Negative Response:
An element is included within the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example:
https://user@example.com:passphrase/cfg/new.txt
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7.4.
Description:
Delete a configuration datastore. The configuration
datastore cannot be deleted.
If a NETCONF peer supports the :url capability (Section 8.8), the
element can appear as the parameter.
Parameters:
target:
Name of the configuration datastore to delete.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent that includes an element.
Negative Response:
An element is included within the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example:
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7.5.
Description:
The lock operation allows the client to lock the configuration
system of a device. Such locks are intended to be short-lived and
allow a client to make a change without fear of interaction with
other NETCONF clients, non-NETCONF clients (e.g., SNMP and command
line interface (CLI) scripts), and human users.
An attempt to lock the configuration MUST fail if an existing
session or other entity holds a lock on any portion of the lock
target.
When the lock is acquired, the server MUST prevent any changes to
the locked resource other than those requested by this session.
SNMP and CLI requests to modify the resource MUST fail with an
appropriate error.
The duration of the lock is defined as beginning when the lock is
acquired and lasting until either the lock is released or the
NETCONF session closes. The session closure may be explicitly
performed by the client, or implicitly performed by the server
based on criteria such as failure of the underlying transport, or
simple inactivity timeout. This criteria is dependent on the
implementation and the underlying transport.
The lock operation takes a mandatory parameter, target. The
target parameter names the configuration that will be locked.
When a lock is active, using the operation on the
locked configuration and using the locked configuration as a
target of the operation will be disallowed by any
other NETCONF session. Additionally, the system will ensure that
these locked configuration resources will not be modified by other
non-NETCONF management operations such as SNMP and CLI. The
message (at the RPC layer) can be used to force the
release of a lock owned by another NETCONF session. It is beyond
the scope of this document to define how to break locks held by
other entities.
A lock MUST not be granted if either of the following conditions
is true:
* A lock is already held by any NETCONF session or another
entity.
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* The target configuration is , it has already been
modified, and these changes have not been committed or rolled
back.
The server MUST respond with either an element or an
.
A lock will be released by the system if the session holding the
lock is terminated for any reason.
Parameters:
target:
Name of the configuration datastore to lock.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent that contains an element.
Negative Response:
An element is included in the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
If the lock is already held, the element will be
'lock-denied' and the element will include the
of the lock owner. If the lock is held by a non-
NETCONF entity, a of 0 (zero) is included. Note that
any other entity performing a lock on even a partial piece of a
target will prevent a NETCONF lock (which is global) from being
obtained on that target.
Example:
The following example shows a successful acquisition of a lock.
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Example:
The following example shows a failed attempt to acquire a lock
when the lock is already in use.
protocollock-deniederror
Lock failed, lock is already held
454
7.6.
Description:
The unlock operation is used to release a configuration lock,
previously obtained with the operation.
An unlock operation will not succeed if any of the following
conditions are true:
* the specified lock is not currently active
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* the session issuing the operation is not the same
session that obtained the lock
The server MUST respond with either an element or an
.
Parameters:
target:
Name of the configuration datastore to unlock.
A NETCONF client is not permitted to unlock a configuration
datastore that it did not lock.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent that contains an element.
Negative Response:
An element is included in the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example:
7.7.
Description:
Retrieve running configuration and device state information.
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Parameters:
filter:
This parameter specifies the portion of the system
configuration and state data to retrieve. If this parameter is
empty, all the device configuration and state information is
returned.
The filter element may optionally contain a 'type' attribute.
This attribute indicates the type of filtering syntax used
within the filter element. The default filtering mechanism in
NETCONF is referred to as subtree filtering and is described in
Section 6. The value 'subtree' explicitly identifies this type
of filtering.
If the NETCONF peer supports the :xpath capability
(Section 8.9), the value "xpath" may be used to indicate that
the select attribute of the filter element contains an XPath
expression.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent. The section contains the appropriate subset.
Negative Response:
An element is included in the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example:
eth0
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eth045621774344
7.8.
Description:
Request graceful termination of a NETCONF session.
When a NETCONF server receives a request, it will
gracefully close the session. The server will release any locks
and resources associated with the session and gracefully close any
associated connections. Any NETCONF requests received after a
request will be ignored.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent that includes an element.
Negative Response:
An element is included in the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example:
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7.9.
Description:
Force the termination of a NETCONF session.
When a NETCONF entity receives a request for an
open session, it will abort any operations currently in process,
release any locks and resources associated with the session, and
close any associated connections.
If a NETCONF server receives a request while
processing a confirmed commit (Section 8.4), it must restore the
configuration to its state before the confirmed commit was issued.
Otherwise, the operation does not roll back
configuration or other device state modifications made by the
entity holding the lock.
Parameters:
session-id:
Session identifier of the NETCONF session to be terminated. If
this value is equal to the current session ID, an
'invalid-value' error is returned.
Positive Response:
If the device was able to satisfy the request, an is
sent that includes an element.
Negative Response:
An element is included in the if the
request cannot be completed for any reason.
Example:
4
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8. Capabilities
This section defines a set of capabilities that a client or a server
MAY implement. Each peer advertises its capabilities by sending them
during an initial capabilities exchange. Each peer needs to
understand only those capabilities that it might use and MUST ignore
any capability received from the other peer that it does not require
or does not understand.
Additional capabilities can be defined using the template in
Appendix C. Future capability definitions may be published as
standards by standards bodies or published as proprietary extensions.
A NETCONF capability is identified with a URI. The base capabilities
are defined using URNs following the method described in RFC 3553
[6]. Capabilities defined in this document have the following
format:
urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:{name}:1.0
where {name} is the name of the capability. Capabilities are often
referenced in discussions and email using the shorthand :{name}. For
example, the foo capability would have the formal name
"urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:foo:1.0" and be called ":foo".
The shorthand form MUST NOT be used inside the protocol.
8.1. Capabilities Exchange
Capabilities are advertised in messages sent by each peer during
session establishment. When the NETCONF session is opened, each peer
(both client and server) MUST send a element containing a
list of that peer's capabilities. Each peer MUST send at least the
base NETCONF capability, "urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.0".
A server sending the element MUST include a
element containing the session ID for this NETCONF session. A client
sending the element MUST NOT include a element.
A server receiving a element MUST NOT continue the
NETCONF session. Similarly, a client that does not receive a
