Cisco NCS 1001 - Page 9

NETCONF sessions
A NETCONF session is the logical connection between a network administrator or network configuration
application and a network device. Global configuration attributes can be changed during any authorized
session, and the effects are visible in all sessions. NETCONF is connection-oriented, with SSH as the underlying
transport. NETCONF sessions are established with a hello message, where features and capabilities are
announced. Sessions are terminated using the close or kill messages.
NETCONF Layers
Figure 1: NETCONF Layers
NETCONF can be partitioned into four layers:
•
Content layer - includes configuration and notification data
•
Operations layer - defines a set of base protocol operations invoked as RPC methods with XML-encoded
parameters
•
Messages layer - provides a simple, transport-independent framing mechanism for encoding RPCs and
notifications
•
Secure Transport layer- provides a communication path between the client and server
NETCONF Operations
NETCONF defines the existence of one or more configuration datastores and allows configuration operations
on them. A configuration datastore is defined as the complete set of configuration data that is required to get
a device from its initial default state into a desired operational state. The configuration datastore does not
include state data or executive commands.
IOS XR NETCONF supports the following operations:
• <get-config>—Retrieves all or part of a specified configuration from a named data store
• <get>—Retrieves running configuration and device state information
• <edit-config>—Loads all or part of a specified configuration to the specified target configuration
• <get-schema>—Retrieves the required schema from the router
NETCONF Operations: Example
Data Models Configuration Guide for Cisco NCS 1001
5
Data models
Introduction to NETCONF