Network Working Group T. Iijima Internet-Draft K. Toumura Intended status: Informational H. Okita Expires: April 19, 2007 Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. Y. Atarashi H. Kimura Alaxala Networks Co. October 16, 2006 Experience of NETCONF over SOAP Implementation draft-iijima-netconf-soap-implementation-00 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. 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." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on April 19, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 Abstract NETCONF protocol is standardized to be exchanged over SSH, SOAP, or BEEP. We actually developed network management system based on NETCONF protocol. For several reasons, we chose SOAP protocol as a transport protocol of the NETCONF. This document describes why we chose SOAP as a transport protocol and the insight gained from actual development. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. NETCONF over SOAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.3. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Framework of Web service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1. SOAP as a Messaging technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2. WSDL as a Interface Description Language . . . . . . . . . 5 3. The insight from our Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.1. SOAP implementation of the NMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.2. SOAP implementation of the Network Equipment . . . . . . . 7 3.2.1. SOAP Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.2.2. SOAP Fault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4. Security Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 13 Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 1. Introduction 1.1. NETCONF over SOAP In order to enable network equipment configuration automatically from network systems, NETCONF is designed to use XML as its description language since XML is easy to understand for systems. XML is suitable technology to cope with flexible specification change and it can make automatic operation possible. SOAP is also designed to use XML and expected to become indespensable technology of Web service. For this reason, SOAP is a prospective technology and suit well with NETCONF protocol. 1.2. Conventions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119 [3]. 1.3. Motivation This document describes why SOAP is practical as a transport protocol of the NETCONF when we develop network management system. And also this document describes the experience of NETCONF over SOAP implementation. Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 2. Framework of Web service SOAP is placed as an indespensable technology of Web service. So if we use SOAP as a transport protocol of the NETCONF, network configuration made by NETCONF is achieved on a framework of Web service. In this section, we describe the overall architecture of the Web service. +---+ +-----------+ +----------------+ +--------------+ +--------+ | | | Security | |Reliable Message| | Transaction | | Search | |XML| | | | | | | | | | | |WS-Security| | WS-Reliability | |WS-Transaction| | UDDI | | | | | | | | | +--------+ | | | | | | | | +--------+ +---------+ | | | | | | | | |language| | API | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WSDL | | JAXM | | | +-----------+ +----------------+ +--------------+ +--------+ | JAX-RPC | | | +----------------------------------------------------------+ | .NET | | | | Fundamental Messaging | | | | | | | | | | | | SOAP | | | +---+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ +---------+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transport | | | | HTTP, HTTPS... | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Figure 1: Overall architecture of Web service As depicted in figure 1, peripheral technologies around SOAP/HTTP is well developed, including security technology. For instance, WS- Security and WS-Transaction technology are installed on SOAP only by inserting particular messages in SOAP Header. If we don't choose SOAP/HTTP as a transport layer of the NETCONF protocol, we have to develop each surrounding technology from scratch. Hence, in the case of introducing additional technologies around SOAP, the development of NETCONF-based network management system is relatively easy when we choose SOAP as a transport protocol of the NETCONF. 2.1. SOAP as a Messaging technology SOAP is basically designed to use distributed object scattered around the internet regardless of platform. Therefore, SOAP is developed as a messaging technology which uses standardized internet technology Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 such as HTTP and XML. In addition, SOAP is so flexible that it's easy to incorporate other technologies. For instance, the notion of session can be easily incorporated in SOAP by inserting message ID into SOAP Header. 2.2. WSDL as a Interface Description Language WSDL is designed so as to bind easily with SOAP. WSDL is an innovative technology for Web service since the development tool automatically generate interfaces toward Web service by just importing WSDL into the development tool. Things left to developers is just to customize the programs by putting generated interfaces together. As for the development tool which understands WSDL, useful technologies are available in the case of SOAP. For instance, Apache Axis is an interface generator from WSDL as well as widely used SOAP implementation. If we choose SOAP as a transport protocol, we don't need to develop interfaces by ourselves owing to the development tool Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 5] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 3. The insight from our Implementation In this section, we describe the architecure of NETCONF implementation using SOAP as its transport protocol. Figure 2 is the architecture of the NETCONF implementation using SOAP. In the following section, we explain the SOAP implementation in both network management system and network equipment +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Network Management System | | | | +--------------------------------------------+ | | | NETCONF application | | | +--------------------------------------------+ | | +--------------------------------------------+ | | | Java library | | | +--------------------------------------------+ | | +--------------------------------------------+ | | | SOAP Implementation | | | | | | | | Apache Axis | | | +--------------------------------------------+ | +---------------------|----------^----------------------+ | | rpc-request | | / SOAP | | rpc-reply | | / SOAP | | +---------------------v----------|----------------------+ | +--------------------------------------------+ | | | SOAP Implementation | | | +--------------------------------------------+ | | | | Network Equipment | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Figure 2: Architecture of NETCONF implementation using SOAP 3.1. SOAP implementation of the NMS Several SOAP implementations capable of being installed on NMS are available today. For instance, Apache Axis is a practical free software implementation of SOAP implementation when we choose SOAP as a transport protocol. Rapid parsing in the NMS is realized since Axis uses SAX as its parser. Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 6] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 And also, Axis is not only the SOAP implementation but useful tools to develop network management system. For instance, Java2WSDL, one of the Axis's tool, can generates WSDL from Java's class file. After we develop Java library which can configure network equipment, the interface toward network equipment can be opened to the public in a form of WSDL. The another tool called WSDL2Java does the opposite. We can generate Java library from WSDL file provided from other vendor. Conclusively, various kinds of benefits can be acquired if we introduce Axis as a SOAP implementation. 3.2. SOAP implementation of the Network Equipment SOAP must be implemented also in the network equipmet so as to accept SOAP messages sent from network management system. Like the NMS, some free SOAP implementations are availlable. However, in the case of network equipment, memory capacity might be limited. Therefore memory saving method might be required when we implement SOAP in the network equipment. 3.2.1. SOAP Header SOAP Header is defined as optional. Therefore, when memory capacity in network equipment is not sufficient, the module which process SOAP Header can be omitted. 3.2.2. SOAP Fault SOAP Fault is designed to return errors to clients when malfunction occurred in servers. However, SAOP Fault is also optional and error messages can be written in SOAP body as well. So when there's memory constraint, implementation of SOAP Fault processor is not always necessary, either. After all, SOAP engine in network equipment is allowed to have only SOAP body parser. Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 7] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 4. Security Consideration Security should be considered from 2 angles. One is transport-level security, and the other is message-level security. Transport-level security such as encryption of entire message is the matter of SSL/ TLS. However, the message-level security such as partial encryption of message or signature should be realized by other technologies. To fulfill that need, WS-security has been defined. WS-Security is one of the Web service technolgoy and is dependent on SOAP technology. WS-Security technology can be incorporated by inserting XML encryption and XML signature into the SOAP header. Also, WS-Reliability realizes confirmation of sent message and resending. WS-Reliability is also achieved by inserting particular messages into SOAP header. Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 8] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 5. IANA Considerations This document has no actions for IANA. Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 9] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 6. References 6.1. Normative References [1] Enns, R., "NETCONF Configuration Protocol", draft-ietf-netconf-prot-12 (work in progress), March 2006. [2] Goddard, T., "Using the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) Over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)", draft-ietf-netconf-soap-08 (work in progress), March 2006. 6.2. Informative References [3] Bradner, S. , "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" , BCP 14 , RFC 2119 , March 1997 . [4] Paoli, J. , Bray, T. , and C. Sperberg-McQueen , "XML 1.0 Recommendation" , World Wide Web Consortium FirstEdition REC- xml-19980210 , February 1998 , . [5] "Web Services - Axis" . [6] "Web Service Description Language (WSDL) 1.1". Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 10] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 Authors' Addresses Iijima Tomoyuki Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. 1-280 Higashi-Koigakubo Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8601 Japan Phone: +81-42-323-1111 Fax: +81-42-327-7868 Email: tomoyuki.iijima.fg@hitachi.com Toumura Kunihiko Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. 1-280 Higashi-Koigakubo Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8601 Japan Phone: +81-42-323-1111 Fax: +81-42-327-7868 Email: kunihiko.toumura.yv@hitachi.com Hideki Okita Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. 1-280 Higashi-Koigakubo Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8601 Japan Phone: +81-42-323-1111 Fax: +81-42-327-7868 Email: hideki.okita.pf@hitachi.com Yoshifumi Atarashi Alaxala Networks Co. Shin-Kawasaki Mitsui Bldg. 890 Saiwai-ku Kashimada Kawasaki, Kanagawa 212-0058 Japan Phone: +81-44-549-1200 Fax: +81-44-549-1272 Email: atarashi@alaxala.net Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 11] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 Hiroyasu Kimura Alaxala Networks Co. Shin-Kawasaki Mitsui Bldg. 890 Saiwai-ku Kashimada Kawasaki, Kanagawa 212-0058 Japan Phone: +81-44-549-1200 Fax: +81-44-549-1272 Email: h-kimura@alaxala.net Iijima, et al. Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 12] Internet-Draft SOAP implementation October 2006 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. 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