Hi,
Robert Varga <n...@hq.sk> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have recently been reminded that there is a potential interoperability
> issue between RFC6020/RFC7950 and extension statements. So far the only
> case where this has manifested is tailf:action, but there may be others
> lurking in the future.
>
> The issue is that a YANG extension has no standardized way of declaring
> it is a part of the schema tree, which means that unless a parser has at
> least partial support for a particular extension, attempting to use
> deviation or augment statements with it cannot work.
>
> It is wide-spread practice to use tailf:action and target statements
> within it with augment/deviate statements -- which I think is a failure
> to follow RFC7950 section 6.3.1:
>
> Care must be taken when defining extensions so that modules that use
> the extensions are meaningful also for applications that do not
> support the extensions.
Yes, but note that 7950 means a 1.1 module, and tailf:action should be
replaced with 'action' in a 1.1 module.
One reason we added the quoted paragraph to 7950 was because of the
problem you describe with tailf:action.
> Therefore a parser which ignores the extension in its entirety, as per
> section 6.3.1, will not populate the schema tree with the production of
> (for example) 'tailf:action foo' nor its descendants and hence an
> attempt to augment the use of the extension or any of its descendant
> will result in failure to resolve the schema node identifier to a schema
> tree node -- similar to what happens when an attempt is made to augment
> a non-existing statement, a grouping, a typedef or an extension
> statement (which may itself be unsupported).
>
> I think the proper way of fixing this would be to define a YANG
> extension, which, when used within another extension, would indicate
> that the extension being defined is part of the schema tree, for example:
>
> extension schematree-statement;
>
> extension foo {
> argument bar;
>
> sts:schematree-statement;
> }
Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the problem, since a parser that
doesn't understand sts:schematree-statement still wouldn't know that
foo defined a schema node, and thus it will still complain if it sees
an augment of a node introduced with "ex:foo".
In order for this to work, "schematree-statement" would have to be a
builtin statement.
(... and if we had this statement, we could have used it in yang-ext
as well, and avoid augement-yang-data)
> With that, any parser not knowing "foo", but understanding
> "sts:schematree-statement" would know that:
> - foo's argument is an identifier as per RFC7950 section 14
> - the use of "foo" follows the usual schema tree population rules
>
> Using that knowledge, the parser can correctly interpret
> augment/deviation arguments as validly pointing to a particular use of
> foo (or its descendants) and correctly ignore their effects.
>
> Is this something the WG feels is a real problem and would be interested
> in solving?
The current advice is of course to NEVER add nodes to the schema tree
with an extension. I think it is probably best to stick to this
advice...
/martin
_______________________________________________
netmod mailing list
netmod@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/netmod
