Network Working Group R. Wilton
Internet-Draft R. Rahman
Updates: 6241,8040 (if approved) J. Clarke
Intended status: Standards Track Cisco Systems, Inc.
Expires: May 5, 2020 November 2, 2019

YANG Schema Version Selection
draft-wilton-netmod-yang-ver-selection-01

Abstract

This document defines protocol mechanisms to allow clients, using NETCONF or RESTCONF, to choose which YANG schema to use for interactions with a server, out of the available YANG schemas supported by a server. The provided functionality allow servers to support clients in a backwards compatible way, at the same time allowing for non-backwards-compatible updates to YANG modules.

This draft provides a solution to YANG versioning requirements 3.1 and 3.2.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on May 5, 2020.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.


Table of Contents

1. Terminology and Conventions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

This document uses terminology introduced in the YANG versioning requirements document [I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-versioning-reqs], the YANG Module Versioning document [I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-module-versioning] and the YANg Packages document [I-D.rwilton-netmod-yang-packages].

This document also makes of the following terminology introduced in the Network Management Datastore Architecture [RFC8342]:

In addition, this document makes use of the following terminology:

TODO - 'schema' and 'versioned schema' could be defined in the packages draft.

2. Introduction

This document describes how NETCONF and RESTCONF clients can choose a particular YANG schema they wish to choose to interact with a server.

[I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-versioning-reqs] defines requirements that any solution to YANG versioning must have.

[I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-semver], which is based on [I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-module-versioning], specifies a partial solution to the YANG versioning requirements that focuses on using semantic versioning within individual YANG modules, but does not address all the requirements listed in the requirements document. Of particular relevance here, requirements 3.1 and 3.2 are not addressed.

[I-D.rwilton-netmod-yang-packages] describes how sets of related YANG modules can be grouped together into a logical entity that is versioned using the YANG semantic versioning number scheme. Different packages can be defined for different sets of YANG modules, e.g., packages could be defined for the IETF YANG modules, OpenConfig YANG modules, a vendor's YANG modules. Different versions of these package definitions can be defined as the contents of these packages evolve over time, and as the versions of the YANG modules included in the package evolve.

This document defines how YANG packages can be used to represent versioned datastore schema, and how clients can choose which versioned schemas to use during interactions with a device.

3. Background

There are three ways that the lifecycle of a data model can be managed:

  1. Disallow all non-backwards-compatible updates to a YANG module. Broadly this is the approach adopted by [RFC7950], but it has been shown to be too inflexible in some cases. E.g. it makes it hard to fix bugs in a clean fashion - it is not clear that allowing two independent data nodes (one deprecated, one current) to configure the same underlying property is robustly backwards compatible in all scenarios, particularly if the value space and/or default values differ between the module revisions.
  2. Allow non-backwards-compatible updates to YANG modules, and use a mechanism such as semantic version numbers to communicate the likely impact of any changes to module users, but require that clients handle non-backwards-compatible changes in servers by migrating to new versions of the modules. Without version selection, this is what the [I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-semver] approach likely achieves.
  3. Allow non-backwards-compatible updates to YANG modules, but also provide mechanisms to allow servers to support multiple versions of YANG modules, and provide clients with some ability to select which versions of YANG modules they wish to interact with, subject to some reasonable constraints. This is the approach that this document aims to address. It is worth noting that the idea of supporting multiple versions of an API is not new in the wider software industry, and there any many examples of where this approach has been successfully used.

4. Objectives

The goals of the schema version selection document are:

The following points are non objective of this document:

5. Solution Overview

An overview of the solution is as follows:

  1. YANG packages, specified in [I-D.rwilton-netmod-yang-packages], are defined for the different versioned schema supported by a server:
  2. Each server advertises, via an operational data model:
  3. Each server supports the operations to:
  4. The server internally maps requests between the different protocol instances to the internal device implementation.

5.1. NETCONF

5.1.1. New capability to advertise schema sets supported

A new NETCONF :schema-sets capability, using base:1.1 defined in [RFC6241], is used to indicate what schema sets the server is willing to support. The server sends an unordered comma separated list (with no white spaces) of schema sets it supports. A server MAY concurrently support clients using different YANG package versions.

The :schema-sets capability is identified by the following capability string:

urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:schema-sets:1.0

 <hello xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
 <capabilities>
 <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.0</capability>
 <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.1</capability>
 <capability>
 urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:schema-sets:1.0?list=
 example-ietf-routing@2.1.0,example-ietf-routing@1.3.1,
 example-vendor-xxx@9.2.3,example-vendor-xxx@8.4.2
 </capability>
 </capabilities>
 </hello>
 

In this example, the server advertises its (abbreviated) <hello> as follows. This indicates that the server supports the following schema sets:

example-ietf-routing:
Versions 2.1.0 and 1.3.1
example-vendor-xxx:
Versions 9.2.3 and 8.4.2

Some extra white spaces have been added for display purposes only.

TODO - add mechanism to indicate default version

5.1.2. <select-schema-sets> operation

Description: Used by a client to select schema-sets which have been advertised by the server via the mechanism described above in Section 5.1.1. The schema-sets are selected for the lifetime of the NETCONF session, unless new schema-sets are subsequently selected via this operation.

Parameters:

schema-set:
Schema-set(s)that the client wants to use for this session.

Positive response: if the server was able to satisfy the request, an <rpc-reply> is sent that includes an <ok> element.

Negative response: An <rpc-error> element is included in the <rpc-reply> if the request cannot be completed for any reason. A <select-schema-sets> operation can fail for a number of reasons, such as a YANG package version is not supported by the server, or a different version of a YANG package has already been selected by another client.

     <rpc message-id="101"
          xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
       <select-schema-sets>
         <schema-sets>
           <schema-set>example-ietf-routing@1.3.1</schema-set>
           <schema-set>example-vendor-xxx@9.2.3</schema-set>
         </schema-sets>
       </select-schema-sets>
     </rpc>

     <rpc-reply message-id="101"
          xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
       <ok/> <!-- Schema set selection succeeded -->
     </rpc-reply>

Example: a client selects schema sets example-ietf-routing version 1.3.1 and example-vendor-xxx version 9.2.3:

TODO - add error indication

5.2. RESTCONF

To enable servers which can support different versions of YANG packages:

Clients select the desired schema-set by choosing the corresponding RESTCONF root resource

This updates Section 3.1 of [RFC8040]. For example, consider a device which has been configured with root-path "/restconf/example-ietf-routing-1.3.1" for secondary schema set "example-ietf-routing-1.3.1". Any operations by the client on schema set "example-ietf-routing-1.3.1" would use "/restconf/example-ietf-routing-1.3.1" as the RESTCONF root resource.

6. Version selection from a server perspective

The general premise of this solution is that servers generally implement one native schema, and the version selection scheme is used to support older version of that native schema and also foreign schema specified by external entities.

Overall the solution relies on the ability to map instance data between different schema versions. Depending on the scope of difference between the schema versions then some of these mappings may be very hard, or even impossible, to implement. Hence, there is still a strong incentive to try and minimize nbc changes between schema versions to minimize the mapping complexity.

Server implementations MUST serialize configuration requests across the different schema. The expectation is that this would be achieved by mapping all requests to the device's native schema version.

Datastore validation needs to be performed in two places, firstly in whichever schema a client is interacting in, and secondly in the native schema for the device. This could have a negative performance impact.

Depending on the complexity of the mappings between schema versions, it may be necessary for the mappings to be stateful.

TODO - Figure out how hot fixes that slightly modify the schema are handled.

7. Version selection from a client's perspective

Clients can use configuration to choose which schema sets are available.

Clients cannot choose arbitrary individual YANG module versions, and are instead constrained by the versions that the server makes available.

Each client protocol connection is to one particular schema set. From that client session perspective it appears as if the client is interacting with a regular server. If the client queries YANG library that the version of YANG Library that is returned matches the schema set that is being used for that server instance.

The server may not support a schema with the exact version desired by the client, and they have to accept a later version that is backwards compatible with their desired version. Clients may also have to accept later schema versions that contain NBC fixes, although the assumption is that such nbc fixes should be designed to minimize the impact on clients.

There is no guarantee that servers will always be able to support all older schema versions. Deviations should be used where necessary to indicate that the server is unable to faithfully implement the older schema version.

If clients interact with a server using multiple versions, they should not exact that all data nodes in later module versions can always be backported to older schema versions. TODO - Specify how mapping errors can be reported to client.

8. Limitations of the solution

Not all schema conversions are possible. E.g. an impossible type conversion, or something has been removed. The solution is fundamentally limited by how the schemas actually change, this solution does not provide a magic bullet that can solve all versioning issues.

9. Schema Version Selection YANG module

The YANG schema version selection YANG module is used by a device to report the schema-sets that are available, and to allow clients to choose which schema-set they wish to use.

Feature are used to allow servers to decide whether they allow the primary schema-set to be changed, and/or allow secondary schema-sets to be configured.

The primary schema-set is the datastore schema reported by YANG Library.

If secondary schema-sets are configured:

Different schema-sets may support different datastores.

The "ietf-schema-version-selection" YANG module has the following structure:

          
module: ietf-schema-version-selection
  +--rw schema-selection
     +--rw schema-sets* [name]
     |  +--rw name          string
     |  +--ro datastores* [datastore]
     |     +--ro datastore    ds:datastore-ref
     |     +--ro packages* [package]
     |        +--ro package    -> /yanglib:yang-library/pkg:package/name
     |        +--ro version?   -> /yanglib:yang-library/pkg:package[pkg:name = current()
     |                            /../package]/version
     +--rw restconf {secondary-schema-set}?
     |  +--rw schema-sets* [schema-set]
     |     +--rw schema-set    -> /schema-selection/schema-sets/name
     |     +--rw root-path     inet:uri
     +--rw default-schema-set?   -> /schema-selection/schema-sets/name {default-schema-set}?

  rpcs:
    +---x select-schema-sets
       +---w input
          +---w schema-sets* [schema-set]
             +---w schema-set    -> /schema-selection/schema-sets/name
               
          
        

10. YANG Module

The YANG module definition for the module described in the previous sections.

          
<CODE BEGINS> file "ietf-schema-version-selection@2019-10-31.yang"
module ietf-schema-version-selection {
  yang-version 1.1;
  namespace
    "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-schema-version-selection";
  prefix "ver-sel";

  import ietf-inet-types {
    prefix inet;
    reference "RFC 6991: Common YANG Data Types.";
  }
  import ietf-datastores {
    prefix ds;
    reference
      "RFC 8342: Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA)";
  }
  import ietf-yang-library {
    prefix yanglib;
    reference "RFC 8525: YANG Library";
  }
  import ietf-yl-packages {
    prefix pkg;
    reference "draft-rwilton-netmod-yang-packages-02";
  }

  organization
    "IETF NETMOD (Network Modeling) Working Group";

  contact
    "WG Web:   <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/netmod/>
     WG List:  <mailto:netmod@ietf.org>

     Author:   Reshad Rahman
               <mailto:rrahman@cisco.com>

     Author:   Rob Wilton
               <mailto:rwilton@cisco.com>";

  description
    "This module provide a data model to advertise and allow the
     selection of schema versions by clients.

     Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as
     authors of the code.  All rights reserved.

     Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
     without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject
     to the license terms contained in, the Simplified BSD License
     set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions
     Relating to IETF Documents
     (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).

     This version of this YANG module is part of RFC XXXX; see
     the RFC itself for full legal notices.";

  // RFC Ed.: update the date below with the date of RFC publication
  // and remove this note.
  // RFC Ed.: replace XXXX with actual RFC number and remove this
  // note.
  revision 2019-10-31 {
    description
      "Initial revision";
    reference
      "RFC XXXX: YANG Schema Version Selection";
  }

  /*
   * Features
   */

  feature "default-schema-set" {
    description
      "Feature that allows clients to choose the default schema set
       to be used for clients.

       Implementations may choose to only support this feature in
       <operational> to report the default-schema-set without
       allowing it to be configured.";
  }

  feature "secondary-schema-set" {
    description
      "Feature to choose if secondary schema sets may be configured by
       clients.

       Implementations may choose to only support this feature in
       <operational> to report secondary schema sets without
       allowing them to be configured.";
  }

  container schema-selection {
      description
        "YANG schema version selection";

    list schema-sets {
      key "name";

      description
        "All schema-sets that are available for selection by clients.";

      leaf name {
        type "string" {
          length "1..255";
        }
        description
          "The server assigned name of the schema-set.

           This should include the schema family, and appropriate
           versioning or release information";
      }

      list datastores {
        config false;
        key "datastore";

        description
          "The list of datastores supported for this schema set";

        leaf datastore {
          type ds:datastore-ref;
          description
            "The datastore that this datastore schema is associated
             with";
          reference
            "RFC 8342: Network Management Datastore Architecture
             (NMDA)";
        }

        list packages {
          key "package";
          description
            "YANG packages associated with this datastore schema";

          leaf package {
            type leafref {
              path "/yanglib:yang-library/pkg:package/pkg:name";
            }
            description
              "The name of the YANG package this schema relates to";
          }
          leaf version {
            type leafref {
              path '/yanglib:yang-library/'
               + 'pkg:package[pkg:name = current()/../package]/'
               + 'pkg:version';
            }

            description
              "The version of the YANG package this schema relates to";
          }
        }
      }
    }


    container restconf {
      if-feature "secondary-schema-set";

      description
        "RESTCONF protocol settings for schema sets";

      list schema-sets {
        key "schema-set";
        unique "root-path";
        description "The schema-sets accessed via RESTCONF";

        leaf schema-set {
          type leafref {
            path '/schema-selection/schema-sets/name';
          }
          description "A schema-set being used by RESTCONF";
        }
        leaf root-path {
          type inet:uri;
          mandatory true;
          description
            "The root path to use to access the RESTCONF
            protocol instance for this schema-set";
          reference
            "RFC8040";
        }
      }
    }

    leaf default-schema-set {
      if-feature "default-schema-set";
      type leafref {
        path '/schema-selection/schema-sets/name';
      }
      description
        "Specifies the default schema-set used by this device.  This
         is the set of datastore schema that is used if a client
         connects using the standard URLs";
    }
  }

  /*
   * RPCs
   */
   rpc select-schema-sets {
     description
       "This RPC allows a NETCONF client to select which schema-sets, among the
        ones advertised by the server, the clients wants to use for this session";

     input {
       list schema-sets {
         key "schema-set";
         leaf schema-set {
           type leafref {
             path '/schema-selection/schema-sets/name';
           }
         }
       }
     }
   }
}
<CODE ENDS>

        

11. Security Considerations

To be defined.

12. IANA Considerations

TODO - Add registrations for YANG modules defined in this document.

This document registers a URI.

12.1. NETCONF Capability URNs

   Index
       Capability Identifier
   -------------------------
   :schema-sets
       urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:schema-sets:1.0 

This document registers a URI in the IETF XML registry [RFC3688]. The IANA registry "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Capability URNs" needs to be updated to include the following capability.

13. Open Questions/Issues

All issues, along with the draft text, are currently being tracked at: https://github.com/netmod-wg/yang-ver-dt/labels/version-selection-solution

14. Acknowledgements

The ideas that formed this draft are based on discussions with the YANG versioning design team, and other members of the NETMOD WG.

15. References

15.1. Normative References

[I-D.ietf-netconf-rfc7895bis] Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M., Schoenwaelder, J., Watsen, K. and R. Wilton, "YANG Library", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-netconf-rfc7895bis-07, October 2018.
[I-D.ietf-netmod-module-tags] Hopps, C., Berger, L. and D. Bogdanovic, "YANG Module Tags", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-netmod-module-tags-09, September 2019.
[I-D.ietf-netmod-yang-instance-file-format] Lengyel, B. and B. Claise, "YANG Instance Data File Format", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-netmod-yang-instance-file-format-04, August 2019.
[I-D.rwilton-netmod-yang-packages] Wilton, R., "YANG Packages", Internet-Draft draft-rwilton-netmod-yang-packages-02, October 2019.
[I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-module-versioning] Claise, B., Clarke, J., Rahman, R., Wilton, R., Lengyel, B., Sterne, J. and K. D'Souza, "Updated YANG Module Revision Handling", Internet-Draft draft-verdt-netmod-yang-module-versioning-01, October 2019.
[I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-semver] Claise, B., Clarke, J., Rahman, R., Wilton, R., Lengyel, B., Sterne, J. and K. D'Souza, "YANG Semantic Versioning", Internet-Draft draft-verdt-netmod-yang-semver-01, October 2019.
[I-D.verdt-netmod-yang-versioning-reqs] Clarke, J., "YANG Module Versioning Requirements", Internet-Draft draft-verdt-netmod-yang-versioning-reqs-02, November 2018.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997.
[RFC3688] Mealling, M., "The IETF XML Registry", BCP 81, RFC 3688, DOI 10.17487/RFC3688, January 2004.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008.
[RFC6241] Enns, R., Bjorklund, M., Schoenwaelder, J. and A. Bierman, "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011.
[RFC6242] Wasserman, M., "Using the NETCONF Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH)", RFC 6242, DOI 10.17487/RFC6242, June 2011.
[RFC6536] Bierman, A. and M. Bjorklund, "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Access Control Model", RFC 6536, DOI 10.17487/RFC6536, March 2012.
[RFC7950] Bjorklund, M., "The YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language", RFC 7950, DOI 10.17487/RFC7950, August 2016.
[RFC8040] Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M. and K. Watsen, "RESTCONF Protocol", RFC 8040, DOI 10.17487/RFC8040, January 2017.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017.
[RFC8342] Bjorklund, M., Schoenwaelder, J., Shafer, P., Watsen, K. and R. Wilton, "Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA)", RFC 8342, DOI 10.17487/RFC8342, March 2018.

15.2. Informative References

[I-D.bierman-netmod-yang-package] Bierman, A., "The YANG Package Statement", Internet-Draft draft-bierman-netmod-yang-package-00, July 2015.
[I-D.ietf-netmod-artwork-folding] Watsen, K., Farrel, A. and Q. Wu, "Handling Long Lines in Inclusions in Internet-Drafts and RFCs", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-netmod-artwork-folding-10, September 2019.
[RFC8199] Bogdanovic, D., Claise, B. and C. Moberg, "YANG Module Classification", RFC 8199, DOI 10.17487/RFC8199, July 2017.

Authors' Addresses

Robert Wilton Cisco Systems, Inc. EMail: rwilton@cisco.com
Reshad Rahman Cisco Systems, Inc. EMail: rrahman@cisco.com
Joe Clarke Cisco Systems, Inc. EMail: jclarke@cisco.com