A NETCONF Extension for Data Fragmentation
draft-zheng-netconf-fragmentation-01

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Netconf                                                         G. Zheng
Internet-Draft                                                   M. Wang
Intended status: Informational                                    Huawei
Expires: December 22, 2018                                 June 20, 2018

               A NETCONF Extension for Data Fragmentation
                  draft-zheng-netconf-fragmentation-01

Abstract

   This document introduces an extension to NETCONF (Network
   Configuration) protocol.  The extension allows NETCONF to handle
   large size data as fragmented RPC messages.  Specifically, this
   document defines a new <get-block> capability and relevant operations
   to handle the fragmentations.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 22, 2018.

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   Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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Zheng & Wang            Expires December 22, 2018               [Page 1]
Internet-Draft            Netconf Fragmentation                June 2018

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Concept and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Current Large size Handling Methods and Problems  . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Stream-Oriented Handling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.2.  Requesting a Portion of Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  Using tools to extract data respectively  . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Netconf Fragmentation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Fragmentation Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  <get-block> extention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  YANG data model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   8.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Appendix A: Examples of the Candidate Solutions  . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   NETCONF [RFC6241] is the next generation network management protocol
   for configuring devices.  It is becoming more and more popular, and
   some NMS (Network Management System) only use NETCONF as its
   southbound interface.  The message procedures of NETCONF are based on
   RPC (Remote Procedure Call) interactions.  A NETCONF client/server
   sends a <rpc> message to the counterpart and then receives a replying
   <rpc-reply> message.

   In some situations, the <rpc-reply> message might be very large.  For
   example, when NMS is retrieving a large amount of routes in a core
   router or doing a full-synchronizing with a device, the <rpc-reply>
   data might exceed Mega-Byte amount.  And also in some scenarios, the
   client may retrieve a continuous stream of operational data from the
   operational datastore [I-D.ietf-netmod-revised-datastores] to perform
   network analytics.  Then there comes the problem of how to handle the
   large size data.  This document briefly introduces two typical ways
   of current handling on this issue; and analyzes the problems of them.

   To fix the problems, in Section 4, this document proposes a method of
   extending the NETCONF protocol to allow handling large size data as
   fragmented <rpc-reply> messages.  The fragmentation is done at the
   NETCONF level, so it allows the NETCONF client to terminate the large
   size data processing momentarily by protocol interactions; and also
   allows the fragmented messages to be instantly parsed piece by piece.