Location of the netopeer server's default .xml configurations

[anoikob]

Greetings. I am running netopeer2-cli and I am successfully communicating with the netconf@localhost server. I am assuming that the various datastores are implemented in .xml files. If so, where can I find those files? Are they created and kept in the file system only while the server is running? I checked this page for a command that would enable me to view files in the server, but there is none. This must mean that the files are somewhere within the netopeer2 / libnetconf / libyang / sysrepo folders, but I don't know if they are plain .xml files or .yang files or something else. Could you direct me to those files?

[michalvasko]

Not sure why you want to access those files, they are internal sysrepo files that should be modified only by sysrepo. So if you break something, just do not ask for any support.

They are in the sysrepo repository dir, the startup data files that is, in JSON format. When you run sysrepoctl -l, the first line prints the repository path. In the data subdirectory, you will find all *.startup files of the installed YANG modules. The running data files are shared memory-mapped files in /dev/shm.

[anoikob]

Thanks a lot! I want to play around with netconf as a whole. I want to try making miniscule changes to the files, so I can try to implement them by means of commiting, as I want to understand the whole procedure. If anything breaks, I can just rollback to a "safe" container instance.

[anoikob]

Ok either my question was not clear enough or I've poorly understood netopeer2 so far.
You see, to my understanding, the way the datastores operate is through xml files that tell them what to do based on their capabilities. The format of such files should look like this:

This is the running datastore's configuration. I got it by copying the xml file i got from the get-config operation. From the tutorials I've watched, I should be able to create similar files and "upload" them to the server. If I want to change something in the running config, the usual procedure should be to change the candidate either directly from the relevant xml file or by using edit-config, then commit-config and confirm-commit to push the changes to the running datastore.

What do you mean by "those files should be modified only by sysrepo" ? Do I have to use edit-config on the candidate?

[jktjkt]

netopeer2 is a NETCONF frontend to sysrepo, which is a YANG database. These JSON files that @michalvasko pointed to are internal data which belong to sysrepo. You must not modify them directly.

There are many ways on how to interact with the content of the sysrepo database, either locally via its C API, or various language bindings (C++, Python), or remotely though NETCONF via netopeer2-server (as you just did), or remotely through RESTCONF via rousette, or through a CLI interface, etc. I have no idea what exactly you're doing, but if you're building a device which is supposed to be configured or monitored via NETCONF, please read the sysrepo's documentation first.

[anoikob]

For a broader context, I am trying to familiarize myself with NETCONF in general, as well as its procedures. To do that, I need a device to configure with this protocol, as well as tools to enable said configuration. I was told that netopeer2 is a good piece of software to get to learn, so I'm trying to figure out how it works in general and how I can configure the test device.

[michalvasko]

I would suggest starting with reading and fully understanding the NETCONF RFC.