Automated Validation of Service Configuration on Network Devices

Abstract

Abstract. Due to the significant development of network services in the past few years, their validation has become increasingly difficult. The advent of novel approaches to the issue of validation is therefore vital for keeping services manageable, safe, and reliable. We present a model for the validation of service configurations on network devices. A service configuration is modelled by a tree structure, and its properties are described by validation rules expressed in terms of these tree elements. By using an existing logical formalism called TQL, we have succeeded in expressing complex dependencies between parameters, and in automatically checking these dependencies against real-world network descriptions in feasible time.

A Formal Validation Model for the Netconf Protocol

“…These constraints have been checked in a different context in [8]. P1 If two sites belong to the same VPN, they must have similar route distinguisher and their mutually imported and exported route-targets must have corresponding numbers.…”

A Declarative Approach to Network Device Configuration Correctness

“…As explained in [23], the configuration of network devices, such as routers and switches, can be represented as a tree where each node is a pair composed of a name and a value. This tree represents the hierarchy of parameters inherent in the configuration of such devices.…”

Modelling the Temporal Aspects of Network Configurations

“…We can presuppose without loss of generality that all properties of a given configuration are described by attribute-value pairs hierarchically organised in a tree structure [13].…”

“…More complex dependencies might constrain the existence of a parameter to the existence of another. Recent works have shown how such dependencies can be automatically checked by logical tools on a given configuration snapshot [13].…”