Network Working Group A. Bierman Internet-Draft YumaWorks Intended status: Standards Track M. Bjorklund Expires: June 3, 2013 Tail-f Systems November 30, 2012 YANG-API Protocol draft-bierman-netconf-yang-api-01 Abstract This document describes a RESTful protocol that provides a programmatic interface over HTTP for accessing data defined in YANG, using the datastores defined in NETCONF. 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 http://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 June 3, 2013. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2012 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 (http://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. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 1] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.1. Simple Subset of NETCONF Functionality . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.2. Data Model Driven API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.3.1. NETCONF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.3.2. HTTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.3. YANG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.4. Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.4. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.4.1. Resource URI Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.4.2. YANG-API Message Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2. Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.1. Message Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2. Resource Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2.1. YANG-API Resource Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2.2. Resource Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.3. Datastore Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.3.1. Content Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.3.2. Editing Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.3.3. Locking Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.3.4. Persistence Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.3.5. Defaults Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.4. Transaction Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.5. Extensibility Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.6. Versioning Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.7. Retrieval Filtering Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.8. Access Control Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3. Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.1. OPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.2. HEAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.3. GET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.4. POST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.5. PUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.6. PATCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.7. DELETE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.8. Query Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.8.1. "config" Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.8.2. "depth" Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.8.3. "format" Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.8.4. "insert" Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.8.5. "point" Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.8.6. "select" Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.9. Protocol Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4. Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4.1. Request URI Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4.2. Message Headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 2] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 4.3. Message Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 4.4. Return Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 4.5. Message Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 5. Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1. API Resource (/yang-api) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1.1. /yang-api/datastore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1.2. /yang-api/modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1.3. /yang-api/operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1.4. /yang-api/version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 5.2. Datastore Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 5.3. Data Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 5.3.1. Encoding YANG Instance Identifiers in the Request URI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 5.3.2. Identifying YANG-defined Data Resources . . . . . . . 44 5.3.3. Identifying Optional Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 5.3.4. Data Resource Retrieval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 5.4. Operation Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 5.4.1. Encoding Operation Input Parameters . . . . . . . . . 48 5.4.2. Encoding Operation Output Parameters . . . . . . . . . 49 5.4.3. Identifying YANG-defined Operation Resources . . . . . 50 6. Error Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 6.1. Error Response Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 7. RelaxNG Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 8. YANG-API module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 11. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 11.1. 00-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 12. Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 13. Example YANG Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 14. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 3] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 1. Introduction There is a need for standard mechanisms to allow WEB applications to access the configuration data, operational data, and data-model specific protocol operations within a networking device, in a modular and extensible manner. This document describes a RESTful protocol called YANG-API, running over HTTP [RFC2616], for accessing data defined in YANG [RFC6020], using datastores defined in NETCONF [RFC6241]. The NETCONF protocol defines configuration datastores and a set of Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete (CRUD) operations that can be used to access these datastores. The YANG language defines the syntax and semantics of datastore content and operational data. RESTful operations are used to access the hierarchical data within a datastore. A RESTful API can be created that provides CRUD operations on a NETCONF datastore containing YANG-defined data. This can be done in a simplified manner, compatible with HTTP and RESTful design principles. Since NETCONF protocol operations are not relevant, the user should not need any prior knowledge of NETCONF in order to use the RESTful API. Configuration data and state data are exposed as resources that can be retrieved with the GET method. Resources representing configuration data can be modified with the DELETE, PATCH, POST, and PUT methods. Data-model specific protocol operations defined with the YANG "rpc" statement can be invoked with the POST method. 1.1. Simple Subset of NETCONF Functionality The framework and meta-model used for a RESTful API does not need to mirror those used by the NETCONF protocol. It just needs to be compatible with NETCONF. A simplified framework and protocol is needed that utilizes the three NETCONF datastores (candidate, running, startup), but hides the complexity of multiple datastores from the client. A simplified transaction model is needed that allows basic CRUD operations on a hierarchy of conceptual resources. This represents a limited subset of the transaction capabilities of the NETCONF protocol. Applications that require more complex transaction capabilities might consider NETCONF instead of YANG-API. The following transaction features are not provided in YANG-API: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 4] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 o datastore locking (full or partial) o candidate datastore o validate operation o confirmed-commit procedure The RESTful API is not intended to replace NETCONF, but rather provide an additional simplified interface that follows RESTful principles and is compatible with a resource-oriented device abstraction. It is expected that applications that need the full feature set of NETCONF such as notifications will continue to use NETCONF. The following figure shows the system components: +-----------+ +-----------------+ | WEB app | <-------> | | +-----------+ HTTP | network device | | | +-----------+ | +-----------+ | | NMS app | <-------> | | datastore | | +-----------+ NETCONF | +-----------+ | +-----------------+ 1.2. Data Model Driven API YANG-API combines the simplicity of a RESTful API over HTTP with the predictability and automation potential of a schema-driven API. A RESTful client using YANG-API will not use any data modelling language to define the application-specific content of the API. The client would discover each new child resource as it traverses the URIs return as Location IDs to discover the server capabilities. This approach has 3 significant weaknesses wrt/ control of complex networking devices: o inefficient performance: configuration APIs will be quite complex and may require thousands of protocol messages to discover all the schema information. Typically the data type information has to be passed in the protocol messages, which is also wasteful overhead. o no data model richness: without a data model, the schema-level semantics and validation constraints are not available to the application. Data model modules such as YANG modules serve as an "API contract" that will be honored by the server. An application Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 5] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 designer can code to the data model, knowing in advance important details about the exact protocol operations and datastore content a conforming server implementation will support. o no tool automation: API automation tools need some sort of content schema to function. Such tools can automate various programming and documentation tasks related to specific data models. YANG-API provides the YANG module capability information supported by the server, in case the client wants to use it. The URIs for custom protocol operations and datastore content are predictable, based on the YANG module definitions. Note that the YANG modules and predictable URIs are optional to use by the client. They can be completely ignored without any loss of protocol functionality. Operational experience with CLI and SNMP indicates that operators learn the 'location' of specific service or device related data and do not expect such information to be arbitrary and discovered each time the client opens a management session to a server. 1.3. Terminology The keywords "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]. 1.3.1. NETCONF The following terms are defined in [RFC6241]: o candidate configuration datastore o client o configuration data o datastore o configuration datastore o protocol operation o running configuration datastore o server Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 6] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 o startup configuration datastore o state data o user 1.3.2. HTTP The following terms are defined in [RFC2616]: o entity tag o fragment o header line o message body o method o path o query o request URI o response body 1.3.3. YANG The following terms are defined in [RFC6020]: o container o data node o key leaf o leaf o leaf-list o list o presence container (or P-container) o RPC operation (now called protocol operation) Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 7] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 o non-presence container (or NP-container) o ordered-by system o ordered-by user 1.3.4. Terms The following terms are used within this document: o API resource: a resource with the media type "application/ vnd.yang.api+xml" or ""application/vnd.yang.api+json". o data resource: a resource with the media type "application/ vnd.yang.data+xml" or "application/vnd.yang.data+json". o datastore resource: a resource with the media type "application/ vnd.yang.datastore+xml" or "application/vnd.yang.datastore+json" o edit operation: a YANG-API operation on a data resource using the POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE method. o operation: the conceptual YANG-API operation for a message, derived from the method, request URI, headers, and message body. o operation resource: a resource with the media type "vnd.yang.operation+xml" or "vnd.yang.operation+json" o optional key: a key leaf for a YANG list data node, which MAY be omitted by the client when an instance of the list is created. o query parameter: a parameter (and its value if any), encoded within the query portion of the request URI. o resource: a conceptual object representing a manageable component within a device. o retrieval request: an operation using the GET or HEAD methods. o target resource: the resource that is associated with a particular message, identified by the "path" component of the request URI. 1.4. Overview This document defines the YANG-API protocol, a RESTful API for accessing conceptual datastores containing data defined with YANG language. YANG-API provides an application framework and meta-model, using HTTP operations. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 8] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 The YANG-API resources are accessed via a set of URIs defined in this document. The set of YANG modules supported by the server will determine the additional data model specific operations and top-level data node resources available on the server. 1.4.1. Resource URI Map The URI hierarchy for the YANG-API resources consists of an entry point and up to 4 top-level resources and/or fields. Refer to Section 5 for details on each URI. /yang-api /datastore / (config=true or false) /modules /module /operations / /version 1.4.2. YANG-API Message Examples The examples within this document use the non-normative example YANG module defined in Section 13. This section shows some typical YANG-API message exchanges. 1.4.2.1. Retrieve the Top-level API Resource By default, when a resource is retrieved, all of its fields are returned, but none (if any) of the nested resources are returned. Also, the default encoding is JSON. Data resources are encoded according to the encoding rules in [I-D.lhotka-netmod-json]. The client starts by retrieving the top-level API resource, using the entry point URI "/yang-api". GET /yang-api HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond as follows. The "module" lines below are split for display purposes only: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 9] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT Server: example-server Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.api+json { "yang-api": { "modules": { "module": [ "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-api ?module=ietf-yang-api&revision=2012-05-27", "example.com?module=example-jukebox &revision=2012-05-30" ] }, "version": "1.0" } } To request that the response content to be encoded in XML, the "Accept" header can be used, as in this example request: GET /yang-api HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.api+xml An alternate approach is provided using the "format" query parameter, as in this example request: GET /yang-api?format=xml HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server will return the same response either way, which might be as follows : HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT Server: example-server Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.api+xml Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 10] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-api ?module=ietf-yang-api &revision=2012-05-27 example.com?module=example-jukebox &revision=2012-05-30 1.0 Refer to Section 3.3 for details on the GET operation. 1.4.2.2. Create New Data Resources To create a new "jukebox" resource, the client might send: POST /yang-api/datastore/jukebox HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com If the resource is created, the server might respond: HTTP/1.1 201 Created Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT Server: example-server Location: http://example.com/yang-api/datastore/jukebox Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT ETag: b3a3e673be2 To create a new "artist" resource within the "jukebox" resource, the client might send the following request, Note that the arbitrary integer "index" is not provided, since it is an optional key: POST /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "artist" : { "name" : "The Foo Fighters" } } If the resource is created, the server might respond: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 11] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 HTTP/1.1 201 Created Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:00 GMT Server: example-server Location: http://example.com/yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist/1 Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:00 GMT ETag: b3830f23a4c To create a new "album" resource for this artist within the "jukebox" resource, the client might send the following request, POST /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist/1/album HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "album" : { "name" : "Wasting Light", "genre" : "example-jukebox:Alternative", "year" : 2012 } } If the resource is created, the server might respond as follows. Note that the "Location" header line is wrapped for display purposes only: HTTP/1.1 201 Created Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:03:00 GMT Server: example-server Location: http://example.com/yang-api/datastore/ jukebox/artist/1/album/Wasting%20Light Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:03:00 GMT ETag: b8389233a4c Refer to Section 3.4 for details on the POST operation. 1.4.2.3. Replace an Existing Data Resource Note: replacing a resource is a fairly drastic operation. The PATCH operation is often more appropriate. The album sub-resource is re-added here for example purposes only. To replace the "artist" resource contents, the client might send: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 12] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 PUT /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist/1 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com If-Match: b3830f23a4c Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "artist" : { "name" : "Foo Fighters", "album" : { "name" : "Wasting Light", "genre" : "example-jukebox:Alternative", "year" : 2012 } } } If the resource is updated, the server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:04:00 GMT Server: example-server Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:04:00 GMT ETag: b27480aeda4c Refer to Section 3.5 for details on the PUT operation. 1.4.2.4. Patch an Existing Data Resource To replace just the "year" field in the "album" resource, the client might send: PATCH /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist/1/album/ Wasting%20Light/year HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com If-Match: b8389233a4c Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "year" : 2011 } If the resource is updated, the server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:49:30 GMT Server: example-server Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:49:30 GMT ETag: b2788923da4c Refer to Section 3.6 for details on the PATCH operation. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 13] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 1.4.2.5. Delete an Existing Data Resource To delete a resource such as the "album" resource, the client might send: DELETE /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist/1/album/ Wasting%20Light HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com If the resource is deleted, the server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:49:40 GMT Server: example-server Refer to Section 3.7 for details on the DELETE operation. 1.4.2.6. Invoke a Data Model Specific Operation To invoke a data-model specific operation via an operation resource, the POST operation is used. A client might send a "backup-datastore" request as follows: POST /yang-api/operations/backup-datastore HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:50:00 GMT Server: example-server Refer to Section 3.9 for details on using the POST operation with operation resources. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 14] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 2. Framework The YANG-API protocol defines a framework that can be used to implement a common API for configuration management. This section describes the components of the YANG-API framework. 2.1. Message Model The YANG-API protocol uses HTTP entities for messages. A single HTTP message corresponds to a single protocol operation. A message can perform a single task on a single resource, such as retrieving a resource or editing a resource. It cannot be used to combine multiple tasks. The client cannot provide multiple (possibly unrelated) edit operations within a single request, like the NETCONF protocol operation. 2.2. Resource Model The YANG-API protocol operates on a hierarchy of resources, starting with the top-level API resource itself. Each resource represents a manageable component within the device. A resource can be considered a collection of conceptual data and the set of allowed operations on that data. It can contain child nodes that are either "fields" or other resources. The child resource types and operations allowed on them are data-model specific. A resource has its own media type identifier, represented by the "Content-Type" header in the HTTP response message. A resource can contain zero or more fields and zero or more resources. A resource can be created and deleted independently of its parent resource, as long as the parent resource exist. A field is a child node defined within a resource. A field can contain zero or more fields and zero or more resources. A field cannot be created and deleted independently of its parent resource. All YANG-API resources and fields are defined in this document except datastore contents and protocol operations. These resource types are defined with YANG data definition statements and the "rpc" statement. A default mapping is defined to differentiate sub-resources from fields within data resources. 2.2.1. YANG-API Resource Types The YANG-API protocol defines some application specific media types to identify each of the available resource types. The following table summarizes the purpose of each resource. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 15] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 +-----------+--------------------------------+ | Resource | Media Type | +-----------+--------------------------------+ | API | application/vnd.yang.api | | Datastore | application/vnd.yang.datastore | | Data | application/vnd.yang.data | | Operation | application/vnd.yang.operation | +-----------+--------------------------------+ YANG-API Media Types These resources are described in Section 5. 2.2.2. Resource Discovery A client SHOULD start by retrieving the top-level API resource, using the entry point URI "/yang-api". The YANG-API protocol does not include a resource discovery mechanism. Instead, the definitions within the YANG modules advertised by the server are used to construct a predictable operation or data resource identifier. The "depth" query parameter can be used to control how many descendant levels should be included when retrieving sub-resources. This parameter can be used with the GET operation to discover sub- resources within a particular resource. Refer to Section 3.8.2 for more details on the "depth" parameter. 2.3. Datastore Model A conceptual "unified datastore" is used to simplify resource management for the client. The YANG-API datastore is a combination of the running configuration and any non-configuration data supported by the device. By default only configuration data is returned by a GET operation on the datastore contents. The underlying NETCONF datastores can be used to implement the unified datastore, but the server design is not limited to the exact datastore procedures defined in NETCONF. The "candidate" and "startup" datastores are not visible in the YANG- API protocol. Transaction management and configuration persistence are handled by the server and not controlled by the client. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 16] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 2.3.1. Content Model The YANG-API protocol operates on a conceptual datastore defined with the YANG data modeling language. The server lists each YANG module it supports in the "/yang-api/modules/module" field in the top-level API resource type, using the YANG module capability URI format defined in RFC 6020. The conceptual datastore contents and data-model-specific operations are identified by the set of YANG module capability URIs. All YANG- API content identified as either a data resource or an operation resource is defined with the YANG language. The classification of data as configuration or non-configuration is derived from the YANG "config" statement. Data retrieval with the GET operation can be filtered in several ways, including the "config" parameter to retrieve configuration or non-configuration data. The classification of data as a resource or field within a resource is derived from the rules specified in Section 5.3.2. Data ordering behavior is derived from the YANG "ordered-by" statement. Editing mechanisms are provided to allow list or leaf- list resources to be inserted or moved in the same manner as NETCONF, and defined in YANG. The server is not required to maintain system ordered data in any particular persistent order. The server SHOULD maintain the same data ordering for system ordered data until the next reboot or termination of the server. 2.3.2. Editing Model The YANG-API datastore editing model is simple and direct, similar to the behavior of the ":writable-running" capability in NETCONF. Each YANG-API edit of a datastore resource is activated upon successful completion of the transaction. It is an implementation- specific matter how the server accomplishes a YANG-API edit request. For example, a server which only accepts edits through a candidate datastore may internally edit this datastore and perform the "commit" operation automatically. Applications which need more control over the editing model might consider using NETCONF instead of YANG-API. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 17] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 2.3.2.1. Edit Operation Discovery Sometimes a server does not implement every operation for every resource. Sometimes data model requirements cause a node to implement a subset of the edit operations. For example, a server may not allow modification of a particular configuration data node after the parent resource has been created. The OPTIONS operation can be used to identify which operations are supported by the server for a particular resource. For example, if the server will allow a data resource node to be created then the POST operation will be returned in the response. 2.3.2.2. Edit Collision Detection Two "edit collision detection" mechanisms are provided in YANG-API, for datastore and data resources. o timestamp: the last change time is maintained and the "Last-Modified" and "Date" headers are returned in the response for a retrieval request. The "If-Unmodified-Since" header can be used in edit operation requests to cause the server to reject the request if the resource has been modified since the specified timestamp. o entity tag: a unique opaque string is maintained and the "ETag" header is returned in the response for a retrieval request. The "If-Match" header can be used in edit operation requests to cause the server to reject the request if the resource entity tag does not match the specified value. Note that the server is only required to maintain these fields for a datastore resource, not for individual data resources. Example: In this example, the server just supports the mandatory datastore last-changed timestamp. The client has previously retrieved the "Last-Modified" header and has some value cached to provide in the following request to replace a list entry with key value "11": PATCH /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/artist/1/album/ Wasting%20Light/year HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.data+json If-Unmodified-Since: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 18] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 { "year" : "2011" } In this example the datastore resource has changed since the time specified in the "If-Unmodified-Since" header. The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:01:00 GMT Server: example-server Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:45:00 GMT ETag: b34aed893a4c 2.3.3. Locking Model Datastore locking is not provided by YANG-API. An application that needs to make several changes to the running configuration datastore contents in sequence, without disturbance from other clients might consider using the NETCONF protocol instead of YANG-API. 2.3.4. Persistence Model Each YANG-API edit of a datastore resource is saved to non-volatile storage in an implementation-specific matter by the server. There is no guarantee that configuration changes are saved immediately, or that the saved configuration is always a mirror of the running configuration. Applications which need more control over the persistence model might consider using NETCONF instead of YANG-API. 2.3.5. Defaults Model NETCONF has a rather complex defaults handling model for leafs. YANG-API attempts to avoid this complexity by restricting the operations that can be applied to a resource and fields within that resource. The GET method returns only nodes that exist, which will be determined by the server. There is no mechanism for the client to ask the server for the default values that would be used for any nodes not present, but some default value is in use by the server. (There is no retrieval mode like "with-defaults=report-all" in NETCONF.) If a leaf definition has a default value, and the leaf has not been given a value yet, the server SHOULD NOT return any value for the leaf in the response for a GET operation. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 19] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Applications which need more control over the defaults model might consider using NETCONF instead of YANG-API. 2.4. Transaction Model The YANG-API protocol does not provide a complex transaction model that allows for multiple protocol operations, or even operations on multiple resources in one protocol operation. A very simple "one operation one one resource" per transaction model is used instead. Applications which need more control over the transaction model might consider using NETCONF instead of YANG-API. 2.5. Extensibility Model The YANG-API protocol is designed to be extensible for datastore content and data-model specific protocol operations. New protocol operations can be added without changing the entry point if they are optional and do not alter any existing operations. Separate namespaces for each YANG module are used. Content encoded in XML will indicate the module using the "namespace" URI value in the YANG module. Content encoded in JSON will indicate the module using the module name specified in the YANG module. JSON encoding rules for module namespaces are specified in [I-D.lhotka-netmod-json]. 2.6. Versioning Model The version of a resource instance is identified with an entity tag, as defined by HTTP. The version identifiers in this section apply to the version of the schema definition of a resource. There are two types of schema versioning information used in the YANG-API protocol: o the YANG-API protocol version o data and operation resource definition versions The protocol version is identified by the string used for the well- known URI entry point "/yang-api". This would be changed (e.g., "/yang-api2") if non-backward compatible changes are ever needed. Minor version changes that do not break backward-compatibility will not cause the entry point to change. The API "yang-api/version" field can be used by the client to identify the exact version of the YANG-API protocol implemented by the server. This value will include the complete YANG-API protocol version. The "/yang-api" entry point will only change (e.g., Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 20] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 "/yang-api2") if non-backward compatible changes are made to the protocol. The "/yang-api/version" field MUST be updated every time the protocol specification is republished. The resource definition version for a data or operation resource is a date string, which is the revision date of the YANG module that defines the resource. The resource version for all other resource types is a numeric string, defined by the "/yang-api/version" field. 2.7. Retrieval Filtering Model There are four types of filtering for retrieval of data resources in the YANG-API protocol. o conditional all-or-nothing: use some conditional test mechanism in the request headers and retrieve either a complete "200 OK" response if the condition is met, or a "304 Not Modified" Status- Line if the condition is not met. o data classification: request configuration or non-configuration data. o subset: request a subset of all possible instances of a list or leaf-list data resource. o filter: request a subset of all possible descendant nodes within the target resource. The "select" query parameter can be used for this purpose. Refer to Section 5.3.4 for details on data retrieval filtering. 2.8. Access Control Model The YANG-API protocol provides no granular access control for any content except for operation and data resources. The NETCONF Access Control Model (NACM) is defined in [RFC6536]. There is a specific mapping between YANG-API operations and NETCONF edit operations, defined in Table 1. The resource path also needs to be converted internally by the server to the corresponding YANG instance- identifier. Using this information, the server can apply the NACM access control rules to YANG-API messages. The server MUST NOT allow any operation to any resources that the client is not authorized to access. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 21] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 3. Operations The YANG-API protocol uses HTTP methods to identify the CRUD operation requested for a particular resource or field within a resource. The following table shows how the YANG-API operations relate to NETCONF protocol operations: +----------+-------------------------------------+ | YANG-API | NETCONF | +----------+-------------------------------------+ | OPTIONS | none | | HEAD | none | | GET | , | | POST | (operation="create") | | PUT | (operation="replace") | | PATCH | (operation="merge") | | DELETE | (operation="delete") | +----------+-------------------------------------+ Table 1: CRUD Operations in YANG-API The NETCONF "remove" operation attribute is not supported by the HTTP DELETE method. The resource must exist or the DELETE operation will fail. This section defines the YANG-API protocol usage for each HTTP method. 3.1. OPTIONS The OPTIONS method is sent by the client to discover which methods are supported by the server for a specific resource, or field within a resource. It is supported for all media types. Note that implementation of this operation is part of HTTP, and this section does not introduce any additional requirements. The request MUST contain a request URI that contains at least the entry point component. The server will return a "Status-Line" header containing "204 No Content". and include the "Allow" header in the response. This header will be filled in, based on the target resource media type. Other headers MAY also be included in the response. Example 1: A client might request the methods supported for a data resource called "library" Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 22] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 OPTIONS /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond (for a config=true list): HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT Server: example-server Allow: OPTIONS,HEAD,GET,POST,PUT,PATCH,DELETE Example 2: A client might request the methods supported for a non-configuration leaf within a data resource: OPTIONS /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/ song-count HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:00 GMT Server: example-server Allow: OPTIONS,HEAD,GET Example 3: A client might request the methods supported for an operation resource called "play": OPTIONS /yang-api/operations/play HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:00 GMT Server: example-server Allow: POST 3.2. HEAD The HEAD operation is sent by the client to retrieve just the headers that would be returned for the comparable GET operation, without the response body. The HTTP HEAD method is used for this operation. It is supported for all resource types, except operation resources. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 23] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 The request MUST contain a request URI that contains at least the entry point component. The same query parameters supported by the GET operation are supported by the HEAD operation. For example, the "select" query parameter can be used to specify a field within the target resource. The access control behavior is enforced as if the method was GET instead of HEAD. The server MUST respond the same as if the method was GET instead of HEAD, except that no response body is included. Example: The client might request the response headers for the default (JSON) representation of the "library" resource: HEAD /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:40 GMT Server: example-server Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache ETag: a74eefc993a2b Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:02:14 GMT 3.3. GET The GET operation is sent by the client to retrieve data and meta- data for a resource or field within a resource. The HTTP GET method is used for this operation. It is supported for all resource types, except operation resources. The request MUST contain a request URI that contains at least the entry point component. The following query parameters are supported by the GET operation: +--------+---------+------------------------------------------------+ | Name | Section | Description | +--------+---------+------------------------------------------------+ | config | 3.8.1 | Request either configuration or | | | | non-configuration data | | depth | 3.8.2 | Control the depth of a retrieval request | | format | 3.8.3 | Request either JSON or XML content in the | | | | response | Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 24] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 | select | 3.8.6 | Specify a field within the target resource | +--------+---------+------------------------------------------------+ GET Query Parameters The server MUST NOT return any data resources or fields within any data resources for which the user does not have read privileges. If the user is not authorized to read any portion of the target resource, an error response containing a "403 Forbidden" Status-Line is returned to the client. If the user is authorized to read some but not all of the target resource, the unauthorized content is omitted from the response message body, and the authorized content is returned to the client. Example: The client might request the response headers for a JSON representation of the "library" resource: GET /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/artist/ 1/album HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:40 GMT Server: example-server Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache ETag: a74eefc993a2b Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:02:14 GMT { "album" : { "name" : "Wasting Light", "genre" : "example-jukebox:Alternative", "year" : 2011 } } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 25] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 3.4. POST The POST operation is sent by the client for various reasons. The HTTP POST method is used for this purpose. The request MUST contain a request URI that contains a target resource that identifies one of the following resource types: +-------------+--------------------------------------+ | Type | Description | +-------------+--------------------------------------+ | Data | Create a configuration data resource | | Operation | Invoke protocol operation | | Transaction | Create a new transaction | +-------------+--------------------------------------+ Resource Types that Support POST The following query parameters are supported by the POST operation: +--------+---------+-----------------------------------------+ | Name | Section | Description | +--------+---------+-----------------------------------------+ | insert | 3.8.4 | Specify where to insert a resource | | point | 3.8.5 | Specify the insert point for a resource | +--------+---------+-----------------------------------------+ POST Query Parameters If the POST operation succeeds, a "200 OK" Status-Line is returned if there is no response message body, and a "204 No Content" Status-Line is returned if there is a response message body. If the user is not authorized to invoke the target (operation) resource, or create the target resource, an error response containing a "403 Forbidden" Status-Line is returned to the client. All other error responses are handled according to the procedures defined in Section 6. 3.5. PUT The PUT operation is sent by the client to replace the target resource. The HTTP PUT method is used for this purpose. The request MUST contain a request URI that contains a target resource that identifies the data resource to replace. The following query parameters are supported by the PUT operation: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 26] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 +--------+---------+---------------------------------------+ | Name | Section | Description | +--------+---------+---------------------------------------+ | insert | 3.8.4 | Specify where to move a resource | | point | 3.8.5 | Specify the move point for a resource | +--------+---------+---------------------------------------+ PUT Query Parameters If the PUT operation succeeds, a "200 OK" Status-Line is returned, and there is no response message body. If the user is not authorized to replace the target resource an error response containing a "403 Forbidden" Status-Line is returned to the client. All other error responses are handled according to the procedures defined in Section 6. 3.6. PATCH The PATCH operation uses the HTTP PATCH method defined in [RFC5789] to provide a "merge" editing mode for data resources. Instead of replacing all or part of the target resource, the supplied values are merged into the target resource. If the PATCH operation succeeds, a "200 OK" Status-Line is returned, and there is no response message body. If the user is not authorized to alter the target resource an error response containing a "403 Forbidden" Status-Line is returned to the client. All other error responses are handled according to the procedures defined in Section 6. 3.7. DELETE The DELETE operation uses the HTTP DELETE method to delete the target resource. If the DELETE operation succeeds, a "200 OK" Status-Line is returned, and there is no response message body. If the user is not authorized to delete the target resource then an error response containing a "403 Forbidden" Status-Line is returned to the client. All other error responses are handled according to the procedures defined in Section 6. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 27] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 3.8. Query Parameters Each YANG-API operation allows zero or more query parameters to be present in the request URI. Refer to Section 3 for details on the query parameters used in the definition of each operation. Query parameters can be given in any order. Each parameter can appear zero or one time. A default value may apply if the parameter is missing. This section defines all the YANG-API query parameters. 3.8.1. "config" Parameter The "config" parameter is used to specify whether configuration or non-configuration data is requested. This parameter is only supported for the GET and HEAD methods. It is also only supported if the target resource is a data resource. syntax: config= true | false default: true Example: This example request by the client would retrieve only the non- configuration data nodes that exist within the second-level "library" resource. GET /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library?config=false HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.data+xml The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:30 GMT Server: example-server Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "library" : { "artist-count" : 42, "album-count" : 59, "song-count" : 374 } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 28] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 } 3.8.2. "depth" Parameter The "depth" parameter is used to specify the number of nest levels returned in a response for a GET operation. A nest-level consists of the target resource and any child nodes which are optional data nodes (anyxml, leaf, or leaf-list). A non-presence container is transparent when determining the nest level. A child node (which is not a non-presence container) within a non-presence container is used to determine the nest-level. The start level is determined by the target resource for the operation. syntax: depth= | unbounded default: 1 Example: This example operation would retrieve 2 levels of configuration data nodes that exist within the top-level "jukebox" resource. GET /yang-api/datastore/jukebox?depth=2 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.data+json The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:11:30 GMT Server: example-server Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "jukebox" : { "library" : { "artist" : { "index" : 1, "name" : "Foo Fighters" } }, "player" : { "gap" : 0.5 } } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 29] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 } 3.8.3. "format" Parameter The "format" parameter is used to specify the format of any content returned in the response. Note that the "Accept" header MAY be used instead of this parameter to identify the format desired in the response. For example: GET /yang-api/datastore/routing HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.data+xml This example request would retrieve only the configuration data nodes that exist within the top-level "routing" resource, and retrieve them in XML encoding instead of JSON encoding. The "format" parameter is only supported for the GET and HEAD methods. It is supported for all YANG-API media types. syntax: format= xml | json default: json Example: GET /yang-api/datastore/routing?format=xml HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com This example URI would retrieve only the configuration data nodes that exist within the top-level "routing" resource, and retrieve them in XML encoding instead of JSON encoding. 3.8.4. "insert" Parameter The "insert" parameter is used to specify how a resource should be inserted (or moved) within the user-ordered list or leaf-list data resource. This parameter is only supported for the POST and PUT methods. It is also only supported if the target resource is a data resource, and that data represents a YANG list or leaf-list that is ordered by the user, not the system. If the values "before" or "after" are used, then a "point" parameter for the insertion parameter MUST also be present. syntax: insert= first | last | before | after default: last Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 30] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Example: Request from client: POST /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/artist/1/album /Wasting%20Light/song?insert=first HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "song" : { "name" : "Bridge Burning", "location" : "/media/bridge_burning.mp3", "format" : "MP3", "length" : 286 } } Response from server: 201 status HTTP/1.1 201 Created Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:01:20 GMT Server: example-server Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:01:20 GMT Location: http://example.com/yang-api/datastore/jukebox /library/artist/1/album?Wasting%20Light/song/1 ETag: eeeada438af 3.8.5. "point" Parameter The "point" parameter is used to specify the insertion point for a data resource that is being created or moved within a user ordered list or leaf-list. It is ignored unless the "insert" query parameter is also present, and has the value "before" or "after". This parameter contains the instance identifier of the resource, or field within a resource, to be used as the insertion point for a POST or PUT operation. It is encoded according to the rules defined in Section 5.3.1. There is no default for this parameter. syntax: point= Example: In this example, the client is moving an existing "song" resource within an "album" resource after another song. The request URI is split for display purposes only. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 31] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Request from client: PUT /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/artist/1/album/ Wasting%20Light/song/2?insert=after &point=/yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/artist/1/ album/Wasting%20Light/song/4 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Response from server: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:01:20 GMT Server: example-server Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:01:20 GMT ETag: abcada438af 3.8.6. "select" Parameter The "select" query parameter is used to specify an expression which can represent a subset of all data nodes within the target resource. It contains a relative path expression, using the target resource as the context node. It is supported for all resource types except operation resources. The contents are encoded according to the "api-select" rule defined in Section 5.3.1. This parameter is only allowed for GET and HEAD operations. [FIXME: the syntax of the select string is still TBD; XPath, schema- identifier, regular expressions, something else] Refer to Section 1.4.2 for example request messages using the "select" parameter. 3.9. Protocol Operations The YANG-API also allows data-model specific protocol operations to be invoked using the POST method. The media type "vnd.yang.operation+xml" or "vnd.yang.operation+json" MUST be used in the "Content-Type" field in the message header. Data model specific operations are supported. The syntax and semantics of these operations exactly correspond to the YANG "rpc" statement definition for the operation. Any input for a protocol operation is encoded in an element called "input", which corresponds to the element in a NETCONF message. The child nodes of the "input" element are encoded Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 32] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 according to the data definition statements in the input section of the "rpc" statement. Any output for a protocol operation is encoded in an element called "output", which corresponds to the element in a NETCONF message. The child nodes of the "output" element are encoded according to the data definition statements in the output section of the "rpc" statement. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 33] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 4. Messages This section describes the messages that are used in the YANG-API protocol. 4.1. Request URI Structure Resources are represented with URIs following the structure for generic URIs in [RFC3986]. A YANG-API operation is derived from the HTTP method and the request URI, using the following conceptual fields: /yang-api/?# ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | | | method entry resource query fragment M M O O I M=mandatory, O=optional, I=ignored replaced by client with real values o method: the HTTP method identifying the YANG-API operation requested by the client, to act upon the target resource specified in the request URI. YANG-API operation details are described in Section 3. o entry: the well-known YANG-API entry point ("/yang-api"). o resource: the path expression identifying the resource that is being accessed by the operation. If this field is not present, then the target resource is the API itself, represented by the media type "vnd.yang.api". o query: the set of parameters associated with the YANG-API message. These have the familiar form of "name=value" pairs. There is a specific set of parameters defined, although the server MAY choose to support additional parameters not defined in this document. o fragment: This field is not used by the YANG-API protocol. The client SHOULD NOT assume the final structure of a URI path for a Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 34] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 resource. Instead, existing resources can be discovered with the GET operation. When new resources are created by the client, a "Location" header is returned, which identifies the path of the newly created resource. The client MUST use this exact path identifier to access the resource once it has been created. The "target" of an operation is a resource. The "path" field in the request URI represents the target resource for the operation. 4.2. Message Headers There are several HTTP header lines utilized in YANG-API messages. Messages are not limited to the HTTP headers listed in this section. HTTP defines which header lines are required for particular circumstances. Refer to each operation definition section in Section 3 for examples on how particular headers are used. There are some request headers that are used within YANG-API, usually applied to data resources. The following tables summarize the headers most relevant in YANG-API message requests: +---------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | Name | Description | +---------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | Accept | Response Content-Types that are acceptable | | Content-Type | The media type of the request body | | Host | The host address of the server | | If-Match | Only perform the action if the entity | | | matches ETag | | If-Modified-Since | Only perform the action if modified since | | | time | | If-Range | Only retrieve range if resource unchanged | | If-Unmodified-Since | Only perform the action if un-modified | | | since time | | Range | Specify a range of data resource entries | +---------------------+---------------------------------------------+ YANG-API Request Headers The following tables summarize the headers most relevant in YANG-API message responses: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 35] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+ | Name | Description | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+ | Allow | Valid actions when 405 error returned | | Content-Type | The media type of the response body | | Date | The date and time the message was sent | | ETag | An identifier for a specific version of a | | | resource | | Last-Modified | The last modified date and time of a resource | | Location | The resource identifier for a newly created | | | resource | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+ YANG-API Response Headers 4.3. Message Encoding YANG-API messages are encoded in HTTP according to RFC 2616. The "utf-8" character set is used for all messages. YANG-API message content is sent in the HTTP message body. Content is encoded in either JSON or XML format. XML encoding rules for data nodes are defined in [RFC6020]. The same encoding rules are used for all XML content. XML attributes are not used and will be ignored if present in an XML-encoded message. JSON encoding rules are defined in [I-D.lhotka-netmod-json]. Special encoding rules are needed to handle multiple module namespaces and provide consistent data type processing. Request input content encoding format is identified with the Content- Type header. This field MUST be present if message input is sent by the client. Response output content encoding format is identified with the Accept header, the "format" query parameter, or if neither is specified, the request input encoding format is used. If there was no request input, then the default output encoding is JSON. File extensions encoded in the request are not used to identify format encoding. 4.4. Return Status Each message represents some sort of resource access. An HTTP "Status-Line" header line is returned for each request. If a 4xx or 5xx range status code is returned in the Status-Line, then the error information will be returned in the response, according to the format defined in Section 6.1. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 36] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 4.5. Message Caching Since the datastore contents change at unpredictable times, responses from a YANG-API server generally SHOULD NOT be cached. The server SHOULD include a "Cache-Control" header in every response that specifies whether the response should be cached. A "Pragma" header specifying "no-cache" MAY also be sent in case the "Cache-Control" header is not supported. Instead of using HTTP caching, the client SHOULD track the "ETag" and/or "Last-Modified" headers returned by the server for the datastore resource (or data resource if the server supports it). A retrieval request for a resource can include headers such as "If-None-Match" or "If-Modified-Since" which will cause the server to return a "304 Not Modified" Status-Line if the resource has not changed. The client MAY use the HEAD operation to retrieve just the message headers, which SHOULD include the "ETag" and "Last-Modified" headers, if this meta-data is maintained for the target resource. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 37] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 5. Resources The resources used in the YANG-API protocol are identified by the "path" component in the request URI. Each operation is performed on a target resource. 5.1. API Resource (/yang-api) The API resource contains the state and access points for the YANG- API features. It is the top-level resource and has the media type "application/ vnd.yang.api+xml" or "application/vnd.yang.api+json". It is accessible through the well-known URI "/yang-api". This resource has the following fields: +------------+--------------------------------+ | Field Name | Description | +------------+--------------------------------+ | datastore | Link to "datastore" resource | | modules | YANG module capability URIs | | operations | Data-model specific operations | +------------+--------------------------------+ YANG-API Resource Fields 5.1.1. /yang-api/datastore This mandatory resource represents the running configuration datastore and any non-configuration data available. It may be retrieved and edited directly. It cannot be created or deleted by the client. This resource type is defined in Section 5.2. 5.1.2. /yang-api/modules This mandatory field contains the identifiers for the YANG data model modules supported by the server. There MUST be exactly one instance of this field. The server MUST maintain a last-modified timestamp for this field, and return the "Last-Modified" header when this field is retrieved with the GET or HEAD methods. 5.1.3. /yang-api/operations This optional field provides access to the data-model specific protocol operations supported by the server. The server MAY omit Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 38] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 this field if no data-model specific operations are advertised. Any data-model specific operations defined in the YANG modules advertised by the server SHOULD be available as child nodes of this field. 5.1.3.1. /yang-api/modules/module This mandatory field contains one URI string for each YANG data model module supported by the server. There MUST be an instance of this field for every YANG module that is accessible via an operation resource or a data resource. The server MAY maintain a last-modified timestamp for each instance of this resource, and return the "Last-Modified" header when this resource is retrieved with the GET or HEAD methods. If not supported then the timestamp for the parent "modules" field MUST NOT be used instead. The contents of this field are encoded with the "uri" derived type from the "ietf-iana-types" modules in [RFC6021]. There are additional encoding requirements for this field. The URI MUST follow the YANG module capability URI formatting defined in section 5.6.4 of [RFC6020]. 5.1.3.2. Retrieval Example In this example the client is retrieving the modules field from the server in the default JSON format: GET /yang-api?select=modules HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.api+json The server might respond as follows. Note that the content below is split across multiple lines for display purposes only: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 39] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:01:00 GMT Server: example-server Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache Last-Modified: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:00:14 GMT Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.api+json { "yang-api": { "modules": { "module": [ "example.com?module=foo&revision=2012-01-02", "example.com?module=bar&revision=2011-10-10" "example.com?module=itf&revision=2011-10-10 &feature=restore" ] } } } 5.1.4. /yang-api/version This mandatory field identifies the specific version of the YANG-API protocol implemented by the server. The same server-wide response MUST be returned each time this field is retrieved. It is assigned by the server when the server is started. The server MUST return the value "1.0" for this version of the YANG-API protocol. This field is encoded with the rules for an "enumeration" data type, using the following leaf definition: leaf version { config false; type enum { enum "1.0" { description "Version 1.0 of the YANG-API protocol."; } } } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 40] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 5.2. Datastore Resource A datastore resource represents the conceptual root of a tree of data resources. The server MUST maintain a last-modified timestamp for this resource, and return the "Last-Modified" header when this resource is retrieved with the GET or HEAD methods. Only changes to configuration data resources within the datastore affect this timestamp. The server SHOULD maintain a resource entity tag for this resource, and return the "ETag" header when this resource is retrieved with the GET or HEAD methods. The resource entity tag SHOULD be changed to a new previously unused value if changes to any configuration data resources within the datastore are made. A datastore resource can be retrieved with the GET operation, to retrieve either configuration data resources or non-configuration data resources within the datastore. The "config" query parameter is used to choose between them. Refer to Section 3.8.1 for more details. The depth of the subtrees returned in retrieval operations can be controlled with the "depth" query parameter. The number of nest levels, starting at the target resource, can be specified, or an unlimited number can be returned. Refer to Section 3.8.2 for more details. A datastore resource cannot be written directly with any edit operation. Only the configuration data resources within the datastore resource can be edited. 5.3. Data Resource A data resource represents a YANG data node that is a descendant node of a datastore resource. For configuration data resources, the server MAY maintain a last- modified timestamp for the resource, and return the "Last-Modified" header when it is retrieved with the GET or HEAD methods. For configuration data resources, the server MAY maintain a resource entity tag for the resource, and return the "ETag" header when it is retrieved as the target resource with the GET or HEAD methods. The resource entity tag SHOULD be changed to a new previously unused value if changes to the resource or any configuration field within the resource is altered. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 41] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 A data resource can be retrieved with the GET operation, to retrieve either configuration data resources or non-configuration data resources within the target resource. The "config" query parameter is used to choose between them. Refer to Section 3.8.1 for more details. The depth of the subtrees returned in retrieval operations can be controlled with the "depth" query parameter. The number of nest levels, starting at the target resource, can be specified, or an unlimited number can be returned. Refer to Section 3.8.2 for more details. A configuration data resource can be altered by the client with some of all of the edit operations, depending on the target resource and the specific operation. Refer to Section 3 for more details on edit operations. 5.3.1. Encoding YANG Instance Identifiers in the Request URI In YANG, data nodes are named with an absolute XPath expression, from the document root to the target resource. In YANG-API, URL friendly path expressions are used instead. The YANG "instance-identifier" (i-i) data type is represented in YANG-API with the path expression format defined in this section. +-------+-------------------------------------------+ | Name | Comments | +-------+-------------------------------------------+ | point | Insertion point is always a full i-i | | path | Request URI path is a full or partial i-i | +-------+-------------------------------------------+ YANG-API instance-identifier Type Conversion The "path" component of the request URI contains the absolute path expression that identifies the target resource. The "select" query parameter is used to optionally identify the requested data nodes within the target resource to be retrieved in a GET operation. A predictable location for a data resource is important, since applications will code to the YANG data model module, which uses static naming and defines an absolute path location for all data nodes. A YANG-API data resource identifier is not an XPath expression. It is encoded from left to right, starting with the top-level data node, according to the "api-path" rule in Section 5.3.1.1. The node name Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 42] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 of each ancestor of the target resource node is encoded in order, ending with the node name for the target resource. If the "select" is present, it is encoded, starting with a child node of the target resource, according to the "api-select" rule defined in Section 5.3.1.1. If a data node in the path expression is a YANG list node, then the key values for the list (if any) are encoded according to the "key-value" rule. If the list node is the target resource, then the key values MAY be omitted, according to the operation. For example, the POST operation to create a new data resource for a list node does not allow the key values to be present in the request URI. The key leaf values for a data resource representing a YANG list MUST be encoded as follows: o The value of each leaf identified in the "key" statement is encoded in order. o All the components in the "key" statement MUST be encoded. Partial instance identifiers are not supported. o Each value is encoded using the "key-value" rule in Section 5.3.1.1, according to the encoding rules for the data type of the key leaf. o An empty string can be a valid key value (e.g., "/top/list/key1// key3"). o The "/" character MUST be URL-encoded (i.e., "%2F"). o All whitespace MUST be URL-encoded. o A "null" value is not allowed since the "empty" data type is not allowed for key leafs. o The XML encoding is defined in [RFC6020]. o The JSON encoding is defined in [I-D.lhotka-netmod-json]. o The entire "key-value" MUST be properly URL-encoded, according to the rules defined in [RFC3986]. Notifications are not supported by YANG-API because they are not supported by HTTP. YANG notification statements are ignored by a YANG-API server. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 43] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Examples: /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/artist/17&select=name /yang-api/datastore/newlist/17&select=nextlist/22/44/myleaf /yang-api/datastore/somelist/fred%20and%20wilma /yang-api/datastore/somelist/fred%20and%20wilma/address 5.3.1.1. ABNF For Data Resource Identifiers The following ABNF syntax is used to construct YANG-API path identifiers: api-path = "/" api-identifier 0*("/" (api-identifier | key-value )) [FIXME: the syntax for the select string is still TBD] api-select = api-identifier 0*("/" (api-identifier | key-value )) api-identifier = [module-name ":"] identifier module-name = identifier key-value = string ;; An identifier MUST NOT start with ;; (('X'|'x') ('M'|'m') ('L'|'l')) identifier = (ALPHA / "_") *(ALPHA / DIGIT / "_" / "-" / ".") string = 5.3.2. Identifying YANG-defined Data Resources The data resources used in YANG-API are defined with YANG data definition statements. Not every data node defined in a YANG module should be treated as a resource. The YANG-API needs to know which YANG data nodes are resources, and which are fields within a resource. For data resources, YANG-API uses a simple algorithm for defining resource boundaries, within the conceptual sub-trees described by YANG data definition statements. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 44] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 All top-level data nodes are considered to be resources. For nodes within a top-level resource: o a presence container starts a new resource o a list starts a new resource o an optional terminal node (anyxml, leaf, or leaf-list) starts a new resource o a data node of type "anyxml" cannot have any sub-resources A non-configuration data node cannot be a separate resource from its parent. Only top-level data nodes are considered to be resources (which only support retrieval methods). 5.3.3. Identifying Optional Keys It is sometimes useful to have the server assign the key(s) for a new resource. The "Location" header will indicate the key value(s) that the server selected, so the client does not need to provide all the key leaf values. It is useful to identify in the YANG data model module which key leafs are optional to provide, and which are not. The YANG extension statement "optional-key" is provided to indicate that the leaf definition represents an optional key. The client MAY provide a value for a key leaf in a POST operation. Refer to Section 8 for details on the "optional-key" extension. Refer to Section 13 for usage examples of this YANG extension statement. 5.3.4. Data Resource Retrieval There are four types of filtering for retrieval of data resources. This section defines each mode. 5.3.4.1. Conditional Retrieval The HTTP headers (such as "If-Modified-Since" and "If-Match") can by used in for a request message for a GET operation to check a condition within the server state, such as the last time the datastore resource was modified, or the resource entity tag of the target resource. If the condition is met according to the header definition, a "200 OK" Status-Line and the data requested is returned in the response Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 45] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 message. If the condition is not met, a "304 Not Modified" Status- Line is returned in response message instead. 5.3.4.2. Data Classification Retrieval The "config" query parameter can be used with the GET operation to specify whether configuration or non-configuration data is requested. Refer to Section 3.8.1 for more details on the "config" query parameter. 5.3.4.3. Subset Retrieval The "Range" header is used to request a specific subset of the instances of a list or leaf-list data resource that are returned by the server for a retrieval operation. Normally, if the target resource in a request message does not specify an instance, then all instances are returned. The YANG-API protocol uses the token "entries" instead of "bytes" as the range units. The entries are numbered starting from "0". A list or leaf-list can change order between requests so the client needs to be aware of the data model semantics, and whether the list contents are stable enough to use the subset retrieval mechanism. If the requested range cannot be returned because the range specification includes index values for entries that do not exist, then an error occurs, and the server MUST return a "416 Requested range not satisfiable" Status-Line. If the range request can be satisfied, then a "200 OK" Status-Line is returned, and the response MUST include a "Content-Range" header indicating which entries are returned. The response message body contains the data for the requested range of entries. Example: In this example, the client is requesting 5 "artist" resource entries, starting with the 10th entry: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 46] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Request from client: GET /yang-api/datastore/jukebox/library/artist HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/vnd.yang.data+json Range: entries 10-14 Response from server: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:01:20 GMT Cache-Control: no-cache Pragma: no-cache Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json Content-Range: entries 10-14 Server: example-server Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 02:12:20 GMT ETag: abcada438af { "artist" : { // content removed for brevity } } 5.3.4.4. Filtered Retrieval The "select" query parameter is used to specify a filter that should be applied to the target resource to request a subset of all possible descendant nodes within the target resource. The format of the "select" parameter string is defined in Section 3.8.6. The set of nodes selected by the filter expression is applied to each context node identified by the target resource. 5.4. Operation Resource An operation resource represents an protocol operation defined with the YANG "rpc" statement. All operation resources share the same module namespace as any top- level data resources, so the name of an operation resource cannot conflict with the name of a top-level data resource defined within the same module. If 2 different YANG modules define the same "rpc" identifier, then the module name MUST be used in the request URI. For example, if "module-A" and "module-B" both defined a "reset" operation, then Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 47] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 invoking the operation from "module-A" would be requested as follows: POST /yang-api/operations/module-A:reset HTTP/1.1 Server example.com Any usage of an operation resource from the same module, with the same name, refers to the same "rpc" statement definition. This behavior can be used to design protocol operations that perform the same general function on different resource types. If the "rpc" statement has an "input" section, then a message body MAY be sent by the client in the request, otherwise the request message MUST NOT include a message body. If the "rpc" statement has an "output" section, then a message body MAY be sent by the server in the response. Otherwise the server MUST NOT include a message body in the response message, and MUST send a "204 No Content" Status-Line instead. 5.4.1. Encoding Operation Input Parameters If the "rpc" statement has an "input" section, then the "input" node is provided in the message body, corresponding to the YANG data definition statements within the "input" section. Example: The following YANG definition is used for the examples in this section. rpc reboot { input { leaf delay { units seconds; type uint32; default 0; } leaf message { type string; } leaf language { type string; } } } The client might send the following POST request message: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 48] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 POST /yang-api/datastore/operations/reboot HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "input" : { "delay" : 600, "message" : "Going down for system maintenance", "language" : "en-US" } } The server might respond: HTTP/1.1 204 No Content Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2012 11:01:00 GMT Server: example-server 5.4.2. Encoding Operation Output Parameters If the "rpc" statement has an "output" section, then the "output" node is provided in the message body, corresponding to the YANG data definition statements within the "output" section. Example: The following YANG definition is used for the examples in this section. rpc get-reboot-info { input { leaf reboot-time { units seconds; type uint32; } leaf message { type string; } leaf language { type string; } } } The client might send the following POST request message: POST /yang-api/datastore/operations/get-reboot-info HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 49] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2012 11:10:30 GMT Server: example-server Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.data+json { "output" : { "reboot-time" : 30, "message" : "Going down for system maintenance", "language" : "en-US" } } 5.4.3. Identifying YANG-defined Operation Resources The operation resources used in YANG-API are defined with YANG "rpc" statements. All "rpc" statements within a YANG module that are supported by the server are available as operation resources. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 50] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 6. Error Reporting HTTP Status-Lines are used to report success or failure for YANG-API operations. The element returned in NETCONF error responses contains some useful information. This error information is adapted for use in YANG-API, and error information is returned for "4xx" class of status codes. The following table summarizes the return status codes used specifically by YANG-API operations: +-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | Status-Line | Description | +-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | 100 Continue | POST accepted, 201 should follow | | 200 OK | Success with response body | | 201 Created | POST to create a resource success | | 202 Accepted | POST to create a resource | | | accepted | | 204 No Content | Success without response body | | 304 Not Modified | Conditional operation not done | | 400 Bad Request | Invalid request message | | 403 Forbidden | Access to resource denied | | 404 Not Found | Resource target or resource node | | | not found | | 405 Method Not Allowed | Method not allowed for target | | | resource | | 409 Conflict | Resource or lock in use | | 413 Request Entity Too Large | too-big error | | 414 Request-URI Too Large | too-big error | | 415 Unsupported Media Type | non YANG-API media type | | 416 Requested range not | If-Range error | | satisfiable | | | 500 Internal Server Error | operation-failed | | 501 Not Implemented | unknown-operation | | 503 Service Unavailable | Recoverable server error | +-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ HTTP Status Codes used in YANG-API Since an operation resource is defined with a YANG "rpc" statement, a mapping between the NETCONF value and the HTTP status code is needed. The specific error condition and response code to use are data-model specific and might be contained in the YANG "description" statement for the "rpc" statement. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 51] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 +-------------------------+-------------+ | | status code | +-------------------------+-------------+ | in-use | 409 | | invalid-value | 400 | | too-big | 413 | | missing-attribute | 400 | | bad-attribute | 400 | | unknown-attribute | 400 | | bad-element | 400 | | unknown-element | 400 | | unknown-namespace | 400 | | access-denied | 403 | | lock-denied | 409 | | resource-denied | 409 | | rollback-failed | 500 | | data-exists | 409 | | data-missing | 409 | | operation-not-supported | 501 | | operation-failed | 500 | | partial-operation | 500 | | malformed-message | 400 | +-------------------------+-------------+ Mapping from error-tag to status code 6.1. Error Response Message When an error occurs for a request message on a data resource or an operation resource, and a "4xx" class of status codes (except for status code "403"), then the server SHOULD send a response body containing the information described by the following YANG data definition statement: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 52] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 container errors { config false; list error { reference "RFC 6241, Section 4.3"; leaf error-type { mandatory true; type enumeration { enum transport; enum rpc; enum protocol; enum application; } } leaf error-tag { mandatory true; type string; } leaf error-app-tag { type string; } leaf error-path { type string; // YANG-API encoded instance-identifier } leaf error-message { type string; } container error-info { // anyxml content here } } } Example: The following example shows an error returned for an "lock-denied" error on a datastore resource. POST /yang-api/operations/lock-datastore HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com The server might respond: Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 53] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:11:00 GMT Server: example-server Content-Type: application/vnd.yang.api+json { "errors": { "error": { "error-type": "protocol", "error-tag": "lock-denied", "error-message": "Lock failed, lock is already held", } } } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 54] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 7. RelaxNG Grammar TBD Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 55] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 8. YANG-API module RFC Ed.: update the date below with the date of RFC publication and remove this note. file "ietf-yang-api@2012-11-30.yang" module ietf-yang-api { namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-api"; prefix "api"; organization "IETF NETCONF (Network Configuration) Working Group"; contact "Editor: Andy Bierman Editor: Martin Bjorklund "; description "This module contains a collection of YANG language extensions to describe REST API Resources using YANG data definition statements. Copyright (c) 2012 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.: replace XXXX with actual RFC number and remove this // note. // RFC Ed.: remove this note // Note: extracted from draft-bierman-netconf-yang-api-01.txt // RFC Ed.: update the date below with the date of RFC publication // and remove this note. revision 2012-11-30 { Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 56] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 description "Initial revision."; reference "RFC XXXX: YANG-API Protocol."; } /* * Extensions */ extension optional-key { description "This extension is used to allow the client to create a new instance of a resource without providing a value for the key leaf containing this statement. This extension is ignored for NETCONF, and only applies to YANG-API resources and fields. This extension is ignored unless it appears directly within a 'leaf' data definition statement."; } } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 57] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 9. IANA Considerations This document registers one URI in the IETF XML registry [RFC3688]. Following the format in RFC 3688, the following registration is requested to be made. URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-api Registrant Contact: The NETMOD WG of the IETF. XML: N/A, the requested URI is an XML namespace. This document registers one YANG module in the YANG Module Names registry [RFC6020]. name: ietf-yang-api namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-api prefix: api reference: RFC XXXX Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 58] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 10. Security Considerations TBD Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 59] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 11. Change Log -- RFC Ed.: remove this section before publication. 11.1. 00-01 o expanded introduction o removed transactions o removed capabilities o simplified editing model o removed global protocol operations from ietf-yang-api.yang o changed RPC operation terminology to protocol operation o updated JSON draft reference o updated open issues section o updated IANA section Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 60] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 12. Open Issues o Which WG should do this work? NETCONF? NETMOD? It is not clear since YANG-API builds on concepts and standards from documents owned by both working groups. o Resource creation order and other dependencies between resources are not well identified in YANG. YANG has leafrefs and instance- identifiers, which can be used to identify some order dependencies. Are any new mechanisms needed in YANG-API needed to identify resource creation order and other dependency requirements? o There is no "message-id" field in a YANG-API message. Is a message identifier needed? If so, should either the "Message-ID" or "Content-ID" header from RFC 2392 be used for this purpose? o Should sessions be used or not? Should "reusable sessions" be used? Better for auditing? How does locking of the /yang-api/ datastore resource work for multiple edits if a session is 1 operation? When does the server release the lock and decide it has been abandoned or client was disconnected? o What syntax should be used for the "select" query parameter? o Should the "/yang-api/modules" field within the API resource be a separate resource, with its own timestamp? Currently the API timestamp is coupled to any changes to the list of loaded modules. Should the API resource be static and cacheable? o What to do about no REMOVE operation, just DELETE? The effect is local to the request; in a NETCONF edit-config it is worse, since the netconf request might create/delete/modify many nodes o Should every YANG data node be a data resource and every YANG RPC statement an operation resource? Is a YANG extension needed to allow data modeler control of resource boundaries? o Encoding of leafrefs? Is there some additional meta-data needed? Do leafref nodes need to be identified in responses (RFC 5988) or is the YANG module definition sufficient to provide this meta- data? o What should the default algorithm be for defining data resources? Should the default for an augment from another namespace be to start a new resource? Top-level data node defaults as a resource OK? Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 61] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 o Is the token "entries" legal in the YANG-API usage of Range? What units should be used? "bytes" is the only token defined by HTTP. o Are all header lines used by YANG-API supported by common application frameworks, such as FastCGI and WSGI? If not, then should query parameters be used instead, since the QUERY_STRING is widely available to WEB applications? o Should the element returned in error responses be a separate media type? o How should additional datastores be supported, which may be added to the NETCONF/NETMOD framework in the future? Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 62] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 13. Example YANG Module module example-jukebox { namespace "http://example.com/ns/example-jukebox"; prefix "jbox"; import ietf-yang-api { prefix api; } organization "Example, Inc."; description "Example Jukebox Data Model Module"; revision "2012-05-30"; identity genre { description "Base for all genre types"; } // abbreviated list of genre classifications identity Alternative { base genre; } identity Blues { base genre; } identity Country { base genre; } identity Jazz { base genre; } identity Pop { base genre; } identity Rock { base genre; } container jukebox { presence "An empty container indicates that the jukebox service is available"; container library { list artist { key index; unique name; Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 63] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 leaf index { api:optional-key; type uint32; description "Optional key used instead of natural key for example. Also rare but possible artists with the same name are really different entities."; } leaf name { type string; } list album { key name; leaf name { type string { length "1 .. max"; } } leaf genre { type identityref { base genre; } } leaf year { type uint16 { range "1900 .. max"; } } list song { api:optional-key; key index; ordered-by user; leaf index { type uint32; } leaf name { mandatory true; type string; } leaf location { mandatory true; type string; } leaf format { type string; } leaf length { units "seconds"; type uint32; Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 64] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 } } } } leaf artist-count { config false; type uint32; units "songs"; description "Number of artists in the library"; } leaf album-count { config false; type uint32; units "albums"; description "Number of albums in the library"; } leaf song-count { type uint32; units "songs"; description "Number of songs in the library"; } } list playlist { description "Example configuration data resource"; key name; leaf name { type string; } leaf description { type string; } list song { description "Example nested configuration data resource"; ordered-by user; key index; leaf index { api:optional-key; type uint32; } leaf id { mandatory true; type instance-identifier; description "Song identifier. Must identify an instance of /jukebox/library/artist/album/song. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 65] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 The id is not the key to allow duplicates in a playlist"; } } } container player { leaf gap { description "Time gap between each song"; units "tenths of seconds"; type decimal64 { fraction-digits 1; range "0.0 .. 2.0"; } } } } rpc play { description "Control function for the jukebox player"; input { leaf playlist { type string; mandatory true; description "playlist name"; } leaf song-number { type uint32; mandatory true; description "Song number in playlist to play"; } } } } Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 66] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 14. Normative References [I-D.lhotka-netmod-json] Lhotka, L., "Modeling JSON Text with YANG", draft-lhotka-netmod-yang-json-00 (work in progress), October 2012. [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999. [RFC3688] Mealling, M., "The IETF XML Registry", BCP 81, RFC 3688, January 2004. [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, January 2005. [RFC5789] Dusseault, L. and J. Snell, "PATCH Method for HTTP", RFC 5789, March 2010. [RFC6020] Bjorklund, M., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020, October 2010. [RFC6021] Schoenwaelder, J., "Common YANG Data Types", RFC 6021, October 2010. [RFC6241] Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed., and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, June 2011. [RFC6536] Bierman, A. and M. Bjorklund, "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Access Control Model", RFC 6536, March 2012. Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 67] Internet-Draft YANG-API November 2012 Authors' Addresses Andy Bierman YumaWorks Email: andy@yumaworks.com Martin Bjorklund Tail-f Systems Email: mbj@tail-f.com Bierman & Bjorklund Expires June 3, 2013 [Page 68]