[Xorp-hackers] Interfacing for runtime config

[Mark Handley]

On 8/25/05, Weaver John-JWEAVER1 <John.Weaver@motorola.com> wrote:
> So I guess there is no library that I can just make calls to pass just
> address and interface info?  I was not looking forward to piecing something
> together and scripting it.

We could build a library version of xorpsh that you would link
against, and which would present a programatic interface for changing
the config.  So far we haven't done this because you can do this from
a scripting language with the existing xorpsh, and because it's not
clear what the user-based security model would be.

Now, such an API would still know nothing about interfaces, vifs, etc.
 Bear in mind that in the XORP architecture, the rtrmgr and xorpsh
have *no* inbuilt knowledge about the components they are managing and
configuring.  This knowledge comes from the template files that are
read at runtime.

An alternative would be for the FEA to provide a programatic library
for configuring interfaces, but by itself this gives you nothing you
can't already access using XRLs.  The downside is that the rtrmgr
would not learn about the interfaces, so you couldn't use xorpsh to
monitor them, etc.

Finally, and what I think you want, it would be possible to build a
helper library than can configure interfaces (via XRLs to the FEA) and
then tell the rtrmgr about them (using the same XRL interface that
xorpsh uses).  This might be worth doing.  Normally we've avoided
building such helpers because you can always code them yourself using
XRLs.  However in this case the requirement may be common enough, and
actually coding it yourself may be hard enough that it may well be
worth doing.

 - Mark