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sysrepo-gnxi

Description

A C++ server based on gNMI specification to communicate with sysrepo datastore.

Supported RPCs:

  • Capabilities
  • Set
  • Get
  • Subscribe

Supported encoding:

  • No encoding/gNMI native encoding (use PROTO)
  • JSON IETF encoding (use JSON_IETF)
  • JSON encoding (if you ask for JSON you will have JSON_IETF)
  • Protobuf encoding
  • Binary encoding
  • ASCII encoding

Supported authentication/encryption methods:

  • no encryption, no username/password (DEBUGGING ONLY)
  • no encryption, username/password
  • TLS/SSL encryption only : server key pair only
  • TLS/SSL encryption + Username/password authentication: server key pair only
  • TLS/SSL encryption & authentication: server and client key pairs (RECOMMENDED)

Dependencies

sysrepo-gnxi
+-- protobuf (>=3.0) #because of gnmi
+-- jsoncpp #because of get JSON
+-- grpc (cpp) (>=1.18.0) #because of TLS bug to verify client cert
+-- libyang-cpp (>=1.0-r3) #because of feature_enable
+-- sysrepo-cpp (>=0.7.7)
|   +-- libyang
|   +-- ...

You can either install dependencies from sources or from the packages.

Install dependencies from source:

  1. If libyang (>=1.0-r3) is packaged on your distrib use it, else run scripts/install-libyang.sh to install the required version of libyang. you can use an older version and apply commit bf1aa13ba2dfb7b5938ed2345a67de316fc34917 to it
  2. You can run scripts/install-sysrepo.sh to install sysrepo. Check here for installation instructions of sysrepo.

By default, grpc and protobuf are linked statically. But you can build it to have them linked dynamically.

Install

Install from package:

Install deb and rpm from https://github.com/YohanPipereau/sysrepo-gnxi/releases

Install from source:

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake -D DYNAMIC_LINK_GRPC=OFF .. # GRPC can be linked dynamically if other applications are using it
make
make install

Build packages

Packages are built with Cpack module for cmake:

Build DEB package:

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake -D CPACK_GENERATOR="DEB" ..
make package

Build RPM package:

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake -D CPACK_GENERATOR="RPM" ..
make package

Generate PKI (Recommanded)

On CA machine:

#Generate a self-signed certificate for CA if you don’t have one
openssl  req -x509 -days  365 -nodes  -newkey  rsa:2048 -keyout  ca.key -out ca.crt

On gNXI server:

#Generate a private key & certificate request for server
#CN (Common Name) or FQDN is mandatory and must be server domain name
openssl  req -new -days  365 -nodes  -newkey  rsa:2048 -keyout  server.key -out  server.certreq.csr
cat server.certreq.csr | grep "CERTIFICATE REQUEST" #check it is a cert request

On CA machine:

#CA sign server certificate request:
openssl  x509 -req -days  360 -in server.certreq.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -CAcreateserial -out server.crt -sha256

On client machine:

#Generate client key, certificate request, make CA sign it
#FQDN/CN is used for MUTUAL TLS authentication. So CN will be the identiy used for access control
openssl  req -new -days  365 -nodes  -newkey  rsa:2048 -keyout  client.key -out  client.certreq.csr

On CA machine:

#CA sign client certificate request:
openssl x509 -req -days 360 -in client.certreq.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -CAcreateserial -out client.crt -sha256

Verify the informations:

#Check information
openssl x509 -noout -subject -issuer -in server.crt
openssl x509 -noout -subject -issuer -in client.crt

# Verify chain certs
openssl verify -CAfile ca.crt -show_chain client.crt
openssl verify -CAfile ca.crt -show_chain server.crt

Get started

  • Server/client in INSECURE mode (no username/password) and no TLS connection
gnxi_server -f
gnmi -addr localhost:50051 get /ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state
  • Server/client with TLS connection for encryption and authentication:
gnxi_server -k server.key -c server.crt -l4
gnmi -addr localhost:50051 -certfile=client.crt -keyfile=client.key get /ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state
  • Server/client with username/password + TLS connection for encryption only:
gnxi_server -k server.key -c server.crt --username cisco --password cisco -l4
gnmi -addr localhost:50051 -cafile ca.crt -username cisco -password cisco get /ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state

Clients

Here is a list of gNMI clients, not all of them work because they don't all respect the specification.

gnmi clients for Capabilities, Set, Get:

gnmi clients for Subscribe (telemetry):

Documentation and examples for:

gNMI clients which should work:

FAQ

Why does it use libyang rather than a JSON library?

A JSON library would not be enough because JSON is not detailed enough and miss information required to build an XPATH (key of sysrepo datastore).

Typically, in a JSON encoded format containing a list, you don't know which field would be the YANG key of the list element.

Ex: /ietf-interfaces:interfaces/interface contains multiple leaves. "name" is the key but JSON does not give this information.

What is the problem with JSON and JSON_IETF encodings?

Your gnmi client for a get or subscribe rpc must have yang models downloaded if it wants to recognize which is the key from a JSON list.

Ex: Which field is the key for interface list ?

{
"interface" : [
  {
     "admin-status" : "down",
     "name" : "GigabitEthernet0/8/0",
     "oper-status" : "down",
     "phys-address" : "08:00:27:60:b7:12",
     "speed" : "1000000",
     "type" : "iana-if-type:ethernetCsmacd"
  },
  {
     "admin-status" : "down",
     "name" : "local0",
     "oper-status" : "down",
     "phys-address" : "00:00:00:00:00:00",
     "speed" : "0",
     "type" : "iana-if-type:ethernetCsmacd"
  }
]
}

What is the problem using different encoding to store xpath in a database?

The problem is that all encodings do not agree on the type which must be used to store a value. For example: /ietf-interfaces:interfaces/interface[name="eth0"]/statistics/octets can be stored as a uint64_t with no encoding or as a string with JSON IETF encoding.

Why Protobuf/Binary/ASCII encoding are not supported?

Protobuf, binary and ASCII encodings requires gNMI client and server to have a convention regarding the data exchanged. On the contrary, JSON IETF [RFC7951] and JSON are self describing, so both clients and server nows how data is encoded (Key:Value).

What is no encoding? When should I use it?

No encoding means your value can be encoded in one of the following type i.e. string, int64, uint64, bool, bytes, float, Decimal64. This types are all supported types for a YANG leaf node.

If you are using "No Encoding", or "Native Encoding", you must know that it is not part of gNMI specification. If you use this, you would receive a list of xpath and their value. (Though it is not supported for now).

It should be used if:

  • Your gNMI client support raw types;
  • You are making a Get or Subscribe Request;
  • You are making a Set request with a XPATH qualifying a YANG leaf;
  • You want to exchange lighter messages (typically for telemetry).

Why do I need grpc 1.18.0 ?

This server compiles with grpc 1.12.0 but as reported here grpc/grpc#17500 , if we want to use TLS for authentication and no root certificate is specified on server side, there will be no checking of client certificate . Thus, anyone could access the server without authenticating.

Why linking statically grpc++ and protobuf by default ?

Because grpc++ is not packaged on Centos and Ubuntu/Debian, and it takes a long time to compile it.