Configuration

The clixon configuration file is an XML file modelled by YANG. By default, it is installed in /usr/local/etc/clixon.xml. The YANG specification for the configuration is clixon config.yang. All Clixon processes (backend, cli, netconf, restconf) use the same config file, although some configuration options are not valid for all processes.

Please consult the YANG spec directly if you want detailed description of config options.

Example

The following is the configuration file of the hello world example:

<clixon-config xmlns="http://clicon.org/config">
  <CLICON_FEATURE>*:*</CLICON_FEATURE>
  <CLICON_CONFIGFILE>/usr/local/etc/example.xml</CLICON_CONFIGFILE>
  <CLICON_YANG_DIR>/usr/local/share/clixon</CLICON_YANG_DIR>
  <CLICON_YANG_MODULE_MAIN>clixon-hello</CLICON_YANG_MODULE_MAIN>
  <CLICON_CLI_MODE>hello</CLICON_CLI_MODE>
  <CLICON_CLISPEC_DIR>/usr/local/lib/hello/clispec</CLICON_CLISPEC_DIR>
  <CLICON_SOCK>/usr/local/var/hello.sock</CLICON_SOCK>
  <CLICON_BACKEND_PIDFILE>/usr/local/var/hello.pidfile</CLICON_BACKEND_PIDFILE>
  <CLICON_XMLDB_DIR>/usr/local/var/hello</CLICON_XMLDB_DIR>
  <CLICON_STARTUP_MODE>init</CLICON_STARTUP_MODE>
  <CLICON_MODULE_LIBRARY_RFC7895>false</CLICON_MODULE_LIBRARY_RFC7895>
</clixon-config>

Specification

Some options (of approximately 50) described below of clixon-config.yang are the following (descriptions are skipped):

container clixon-config {
    leaf CLICON_CONFIGFILE{
        type string;
    }
    leaf CLICON_YANG_MAIN_DIR {
        type string;
    }
    leaf-list CLICON_FEATURE {
       type string;
    }
    leaf CLICON_YANG_REGEXP {
        type regexp_mode;
        default posix;
    }

The option CLICON_CONFIGFILE is special, it must be available before the configuration file is found (see Finding the configuration), which means that the value in the file is a no-op.

Finding the configuration

There are several ways to change where Clixon finds it config file (FILE), in priority order:

  1. Start a clixon program with the -f <FILE> option. For example:

    clixon_backend -f FILE

  2. At install time, Use the –with-configfile=FILE option to configure:

    ./configure -f FILE

  3. At install time: ./configure –with-sysconfig=<dir> when configuring. Then FILE is <dir>/clixon.xml

  4. At install time: ./configure –sysconfig=<dir> when configuring. Then FILE is <dir>/etc/clixon.xml

  5. If none of the above: FILE is /usr/local/etc/clixon.xml

Note that the configure file itself may have the option CLICON_CONFIGFILE but due to bootstrapping reasons, its value is meaningless but can be useful for documentation purposes:

<CLICON_CONFIGFILE>/usr/local/etc/clixon.xml</CLICON_CONFIGFILE>

Runtime modification

You can modify clixon options at runtime by using the -o option to modify the configuration specified in the configuration file. For example, add usr/local/share/ietf to the list of directories where yang files are searched for:

clixon_cli -o CLICON_YANG_DIR=/usr/local/share/ietf

Features

CLICON_FEATURE is a list of values, describing how Clixon supports feature.

A value is specified as one of the following:

  • <module>:<feature> : enable a specific feature in a specific module
  • *:* : enable all features in all modules
  • <module>:* : enable all features in the specified module
  • *:<feature> : enable the specific feature in all modules.

Example:

<CLICON_FEATURE>ietf-netconf:startup</CLICON_FEATURE>
<CLICON_FEATURE>ietf-netconf:*</CLICON_FEATURE>
<CLICON_FEATURE>*:*</CLICON_FEATURE>

Supplying the -o option adds a value to the feature list.

Clixon have three hardcoded features:

  • ietf-netconf:candidate (RFC6241 8.3)
  • ietf-netconf:validate (RFC6241 8.6)
  • ietf-netconf:xpath (RFC6241 8.9)

Finding YANG files

The example have two options for finding Yang files:

<CLICON_YANG_DIR>/usr/local/share/clixon</CLICON_YANG_DIR>
<CLICON_YANG_MODULE_MAIN>clixon-hello</CLICON_YANG_MODULE_MAIN>

which means that Yang files are searched for in /usr/local/share/clixon and that the module clixon-hello should be loaded. Note:

  • clixon-hello.yang must be present in /usr/local/share/clixon
  • Clixon itself may load several YANG files as part of the system startup, such as clixon-config.yang. These must all reside in the list of CLICON_YANG_DIR:s.
  • When a Yang file is loaded, it may contain references to other Yang files (eg using import and include). They must also be found in the list of CLICON_YANG_DIR:s.

The following configuration file options control the loading of Yang files:

CLICON_YANG_DIR
A list of directories (yang dir path) where Clixon searches for module and submodules.
CLICON_YANG_MAIN_FILE
Load a specific Yang module given by a file.
CLICON_YANG_MODULE_MAIN
Specifies a single module to load. The module is searched for in the yang dir path.
CLICON_YANG_MODULE_REVISION
Specifies a revision to the main module.
CLICON_YANG_MAIN_DIR
Load all yang modules in this directory.

Note that the special YANG_INSTALLDIR autoconf configure option, by default /usr/local/share/clixon should be included in the yang dir path for Clixon system files to be found.

You can combine the options, however, if there are different variants of the same module, more specific options override less specific. The precedence of the options are as follows:

  • CLICON_YANG_MAIN_FILE
  • CLICON_YANG_MODULE_MAIN
  • CLICON_YANG_MAIN_DIR

Note that using CLICON_YANG_MAIN_DIR Clixon may find several files containing the same Yang module. Clixon will prefer the one without a revision date if such a file exists. If no file has a revision date, Clixon will prefer the newest.

Default values

CLICON_YANG_REGEXP which is not present in the hello world is an example of a configuration option with a default value of posix:

<CLICON_YANG_REGEXP>posix</CLICON_YANG_REGEXP>