RFC Number : 1076
Title : HEMS monitoring and control language.
Network Working Group G. Trewitt
Request for Comments: 1076 Stanford University
Obsoletes: RFC 1023 C. Partridge
BBN/NNSC
November 1988
HEMS Monitoring and Control Language
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Status of This Memo 1
Introduction 2
2. Overview and Scope 2
3. Overview of Query Processor Operation 4
4. Encoding of Queries and Responses 5
4.1 Notation Used in This Proposal 5
5. Data Organization 6
5.1 Example Data Tree 7
5.2 Arrays 8
6. Components of a Query 9
7. Reply to a Query 10
8. Query Language 12
8.1 Moving Around in the Data Tree 14
8.2 Retrieving Data 15
8.3 Data Attributes 16
8.4 Examining Memory 18
8.5 Control Operations: Modifying the Data Tree 19
8.6 Associative Data Access: Filters 21
8.7 Terminating a Query 26
9. Extending the Set of Values 27
10. Authorization 27
11. Errors 28
I. ASN.1 Descriptions of Query Language Components 29
I.1 Operation Codes 30
I.2 Error Returns 31
I.3 Filters 33
I.4 Attributes 34
I.5 VendorSpecific 36
II. Implementation Hints 36
III. Obtaining a Copy of the ASN.1 Specification 42
1. STATUS OF THIS MEMO
This RFC specifies a query language for monitoring and control of
network entities. This RFC supercedes RFC-1023, extending the query
language and providing more discussion of the underlying issues.
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This language is a component of the High-Level Entity Monitoring
System (HEMS) described in RFC-1021 and RFC-1022. Readers may wish
to consult these RFCs when reading this memo. RFC-1024 contains
detailed assignments of numbers and structures used in this system.
Portions of RFC-1024 that define query language structures are
superceded by definitions in this memo. This memo assumes a
knowledge of the ISO data encoding standard, ASN.1.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
INTRODUCTION
This RFC specifies the design of a general-purpose, yet efficient,
monitoring and control language for managing network entities. The
data in the entity is modeled as a hierarchy and specific items are
named by giving the path from the root of the tree. Most items are
read-only, but some can be 'set' in order to perform control
operations. Both requests and responses are represented using the
ISO ASN.1 data encoding rules.
2. OVERVIEW AND SCOPE
The basic model of monitoring and control used in this memo is that a
query is sent to a monitored entity and the entity sends back a
response. The term query is used in the database sense -- it may
request information, modify data, or both. We will use gateway-
oriented examples, but it should be understood that this query-
response mechanism is applicable to any IP entity.
In particular, there is no notion of an interactive 'conversation' as
in SMTP [RFC-821] or FTP [RFC-959]. A query is a complete request
that stands on its own and elicits a complete response.
In order to design the query language, we had to define a model for
the data to be retrieved by the queries, which required some
understanding of and assumptions to be made about the data. We ended
up with a fairly flexible data model, which places few limits on the
type or size of the data.
Wherever possible, we give motivations for the design decisions or
assumptions that led to particular features or definitions. Some of
the important global considerations and assumptions are:
- The query processor should place as little computational
burden on the monitored entity as possible.
- It should not be necessary for a monitored entity to store
the complete query. Nothing in the query language should
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preclude an implementation from being able to process the
query on the fly, producing portions of the response while
the query is still being read and parsed. There may be
other constraints that require large amounts of data to be
buffered, but the query language design must not be one.
- It is assumed that there is some mechanism to transport a
sequence of octets to a query processor within the
monitored entity and that there is some mechanism to return
a sequence of octets to the entity making the query. In
HEMS, this is provided by HEMP and its underlying transport
layer. The query language design is independent of these
details, however, and could be grafted onto some other
protocol.
- The data model must provide organization for the data, so
that it can be conveniently named.
- Much of the data to be monitored will be contained in
tables. Some tables may contain other tables. The query
language should be able to deal with such tables.
- We don't provide capabilities for data reduction in the
query language. We will provide for data selection, for
example, only retrieving certain table entries, but we will
not provide general facilities for processing data, such as
computing averages.
- Because one monitoring center may be querying many
(possibly hetrogenous) hosts, it must be possible to write
generic queries that can be sent to all hosts, and have the
query elicit as much information as is available from each
host. i.e., queries must not be aborted just because they
requested non-existent data.
There were some assumptions that we specifically did not make:
- It is up to the implementation to choose what degree of
concurrency will be allowed when processing queries. By
locking only portions of the database, it should be
possible to achieve good concurrency while still preventing
deadlock.
- This specification makes no statement about the use of the
'definite' and 'indefinite' length forms in ASN.1. There
is currently some debate about this usage in the ISO
community; implementors should note the recommendations in
the ASN.1 specification.
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Other RFCs associated with HEMS are:
RFC-1021 Overview;
RFC-1022 Transport protocol and message encapsulation;
RFC-1024 Precise data definitions.
The rest of this report is organized as follows:
Section 3 Gives a brief overview of the data model and the
operation of the query processor.
Section 4 Describes the encoding used for queries and
responses, and the notation used to represent them
in this report.
Section 5 Describes how the data is organized in the
monitored entity, and the view provided of it by
the query processor.
Section 6 Describes the basic data types that may be given
to the query processor as input.
Section 7 Describes how a reply to a query is organized.
Section 8 Describes the operations available in the query
language.
Section 9 Describes how the set of data in the tree may be
extended.
Section 10 Describes how authorization issues affect the
execution of a query.
Section 11 Describes how errors are reported, and their
effect on the processing of the query.
Appendix I Gives precise ASN.1 definitions of the data types
used by the query processor.
Appendix II Gives extensive implementation hints for the core
of the query processor.
3. OVERVIEW OF QUERY PROCESSOR OPERATION
In this section, we give an overview of the operation of the query
processor, to provide a framework for the later sections.
The query language models the manageable data as a tree, with each
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branch representing a different aspect of the entity, such as
different layers of protocols. Subtrees are further divided to
provide additional structure to the data. The leaves of the tree
contain the actual data.
Given this data representation, the task of the query processor is to
traverse this tree and retrieve (or modify) data specified in a
query. A query consists of instructions to move around in the tree
and to retrieve (or modify) named data. The result of a query is an
exact image of the parts of the tree that the query processor
visited.
The query processor is very simple -- it only understands eight
commands, most of which share the same structure. It is helpful to
think of the query processor as an automaton that walks around in the
tree, directed by commands in the query. As it moves around, it
copies the tree structure it traverses to the query result. Data
that is requested by the query is copied into the result as well.
Data that is changed by a query is copied into the result after the
modification is made.
4. ENCODING OF QUERIES AND RESPONSES
Both queries and responses are encoded using the representation
defined in ISO Standard ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation 1). ASN.1
represents data as sequences of triples that
are encoded as a stream of octets. The data tuples may be
recursively nested to represent structured data such as arrays or
records. For a full description, see the ISO standards IS 8824 and
IS 8825. See appendix for information about obtaining these
documents.
4.1 Notation Used in This Proposal
The notation used in this memo is similar to that used in ASN.1, but
less formal, smaller, and (hopefully) easier to read. We will refer
to a tuple as a 'data object'. In this RFC, we
will not be concerned with the details of the object lengths. They
exist in the actual ASN.1 encoding, but will be omitted in the
examples here.
Data objects that have no internal ASN.1 structure such as integer or
octet string are referred to as 'simple types' or 'simple objects'.
Objects which are constructed out of other ASN.1 data objects will be
referred to as 'composite types' or 'composite objects'.
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The notation
ID(value)
represents a simple object whose tag is 'ID' with the given value. A
composite object is represented as
ID{ ... contents ... }
where contents is a sequence of data objects. The contents may
include both simple and structured types, so the structure is fully
recursive.
The difference between simple and composite types is close to the
meaning of the 'constructor' bit in ASN.1. For the uses here, the
distinction is made based upon the semantics of the data, not the
representation. Therefore, even though an OctetString can be
represented in ASN.1 using either constructed or non-constructed
forms, it is conceptually a simple type, with no internal structure,
and will always be written as
ID('some arbitrary string')
in this RFC.
There are situations where it is necessary to specify a type but give
no value, such as when referring to the name of the data. In this
situation, the same notation is used, but with the value omitted:
ID or ID() or ID{}
Such objects have zero length and no contents. The latter two forms
are used when a distinction is being made between simple and
composite data, but the difference is just notation -- the
representation is the same.
ASN.1 distinguishes between four 'classes' of tags: universal,
application-specific, context-dependent, and reserved. HEMS and this
query language use the first three. Universal tags are assigned in
the ASN.1 standard and its addendums for common types, and are
understood by any application using ASN.1. Application-specific tags
are limited in scope to a particular application. These are used for
'well-known' identifiers that must be recognizable in any context,
such as derived data types. Finally, context-dependent tags are used
for objects whose meaning is dependent upon where they are
encountered. Most tags that identify data are context-dependent.
5. DATA ORGANIZATION
Data in a monitored entity is modeled as a hierarchy.
Implementations are not required to organize the data internally as a
hierarchy, but they must provide this view of the data through the
query language. A hierarchy offers useful structure for the
following operations:
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Organization A hierarchy allows related data to be grouped
together in a natural way.
Naming The name of a piece of data is just the path from the
root to the data of interest.
Mapping onto ASN.1
ASN.1 can easily represent a hierarchy by using a
'constructor' type as an envelope for an entire
subtree.
Efficient Representation
Hierarchical structures are compact and can be
traversed quickly.
Safe Locking If it is necessary to lock part of the hierarchy (for
example, when doing an update), locking an entire
subtree can be done efficiently and safely, with no
danger of deadlock.
We will use the term 'data tree' to refer to this entire structure.
Note that this internal model is completely independent of the
external ASN.1 representation -- any other suitable representation
would do. For the sake of efficiency, we do make a one-to-one
mapping between ASN.1 tags and the (internal) names of the nodes.
The same could be done for any other external representation.
Each node in the hierarchy must have names for its component parts.
Although we would normally think of names as being ASCII strings such
as 'input errors', the actual name is just an ASN.1 tag. Such names
are small integers (typically, less than 30) and so can easily be
mapped by the monitored entity onto its internal representation.
We use the term 'dictionary' to mean an internal node in the
hierarchy. Leaf nodes contain the actual data. A dictionary may
contain both leaf nodes and other dictionaries.
5.1 Example Data Tree
Here is a possible organization of the hierarchy in an entity that
has several network interfaces and does IP routing. The exact
organization of data in entities is specified in RFC-1024. This
skeletal data tree will be used throughout this RFC in query
examples.
System {
name -- host name
clock-msec -- msec since boot
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There are three top-level dictionaries in this hierarchy (System,
Interfaces, and IPRouting) and three other dictionary types
(InterfaceData, Entry, and ARP), each with multiple instances.
The 'name' of the clock in this entity would be:
system{ clock-msec }
and the name of a routing table entry's IP address would be:
IPRouting{ Entry{ ip-addr } }.
More than one piece of data can be named by a single ASN.1 object.
The entire collection of system information is named by:
system
and the name of a routing table's IP address and cost would be:
IPRouting{ Entry{ ip-addr, cost } }.
5.2 Arrays
There is one sub-type of a dictionary that is used as the basis for
tables of objects with identical types. We call these dictionaries
arrays. In the example above, the dictionaries for interfaces,
routing tables, and ARP tables are all arrays.
In the examples above, the 'ip-addr' and 'cost' fields are named. In
fact, these names refer to the field values for ALL of the routing
table entries -- the name doesn't (and can't) specify which routing
table entry is intended. This ambiguity is a problem wherever data
is organized in tables. If there was a meaningful index for such
tables (e.g., 'routing table entry #1'), there would be no problem.
Unfortunately, there usually isn't such an index. The solution to
this problem requires that the data be accessed on the basis of some
of its content. Filters, discussed in section 8.6, provide this
mechanism.
The primary difference between arrays and plain dictionaries is that
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arrays may contain only one type of item, while dictionaries, in
general, will contain many different types of items. For example,
the dictionary IPRouting (which is an array) will contain only items
of type Entry.
The fact that these objects are viewed externally as arrays or tables
does not mean that they are represented in an implementation as
linear lists of objects. Any collection of same-typed objects is
viewed as an array, even though it might be stored internally in some
other format, for example, as a hash table.
6. COMPONENTS OF A QUERY
A HEMS query consists of a sequence of ASN.1 objects, interpreted by
a simple stack-based interpreter. [Although we define the query
language in terms of the operations of a stack machine, the language
does not require an implementation to use a stack machine. This is a
well-understood model, and is easy to implement.] One ASN.1 tag is
reserved for operation codes; all other tags indicate data that will
eventually be used by an operation. These objects are pushed onto
the stack when received. Opcodes are immediately executed and may
remove or add items to the stack. Because ASN.1 itself provides
tags, very little needs to be done to the incoming ASN.1 objects to
make them suitable for use by the query interpreter.
Each ASN.1 object in a query will fit into one of the following
categories:
Opcode An opcode tells the query interpreter to perform an action.
They are described in detail in section 8. Opcodes are
represented by an application-specific type whose value
determines the operation.
Template These are objects that name one or more items in the data
tree. Named items may be either simple items (leaf nodes)
or entire dictionaries, in which case the entire subtree
'underneath' the dictionary is understood. Templates are
used to select specific data to be retrieved from the data
tree. A template may be either simple or structured,
depending upon what it is naming. A template only names
the data -- there are no values contained in it. Therefore
the leaf objects in a template will all have a length of
zero.
Examples of very simple templates are:
name() or System{}
Each of these is just one ASN.1 data object, with zero
length. The first names a single data item in the 'System'
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dictionary (and must appear in that context), and the
second names the entire 'System' dictionary. A more
complex template such as:
Interfaces{ InterfaceData{ address, netMask, ARP } }
names two simple data items and a dictionary, iterated over
all occurrences of 'InterfaceData' within the Interfaces
array.
Path A path is a special case of a template that names only a
single node in the tree. It specifies a path down into the
dictionary tree and names exactly one node in the
dictionary tree.
Value These are used to give data values when needed in a query,
for example, when changing a value in the data tree. A
value can be thought of as either a filled-in template or
as the ASN.1 representation some part of the data tree.
Filter A boolean expression that can be executed in the context of
a particular dictionary that is used to select or not
select items in the dictionary. The expressions consist of
the primitives 'equal', 'greater-or-equal',
'less-or-equal', and 'present' possibly joined by 'and',
'or', and 'not'. (See section 8.6.)
Values, Paths, and Templates usually have names in the context-
dependent class, except for a few special cases, which are in the
application-specific class.
7. REPLY TO A QUERY
The data returned to the monitoring entity is a sequence of ASN.1
data items. Conceptually, the reply is a subset of the data tree,
where the query selects which portions are to be included. This is
exactly true for data retrieval requests, and essentially true for
data modification requests -- the reply contains the data after it
has been modified. The key point is that the data in a reply
represents the state of the data tree immediately after the query was
executed.
The sequence of the data is determined by the sequence of query
language operations and the order of data items within Templates and
Values given as input to these operations. If a query requests data
from two of the top-level dictionaries in the data tree, by giving
two templates such as:
System{ name, interfaces }
Interfaces{
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InterfaceData { address, netMask, mtu }
}
then the response will consist of two ASN.1 data objects, as follows:
With few exceptions, each of the data items in the hierarchy is named
in the context-specific ASN.1 type space. Because of this, the
returned objects must be fully qualified. For example, the name of
the entity must always be returned encapsulated inside an ASN.1
object for 'System'. If it were not, there would be no way to tell
if the object that was returned was 'name' inside the 'System'
dictionary or 'address' inside the 'interfaces' dictionary (assuming
in this case that 'name' and 'address' were assigned the same integer
as their ASN.1 tags).
Having fully-qualified data simplifies decoding of the data at the
receiving end and allows the tags to be locally chosen. Definitions
for tags within routing tables won't conflict with definitions for
tags within interfaces. Therefore, the people doing the name
assignments are less constrained. In addition, most of the
identifiers will be fairly small integers, which is an advantage
because ASN.1 can fit tag numbers up to 30 in a one-octet tag field.
Larger numbers require a second octet.
If data is requested that doesn't exist, either because the tag is
not defined, or because an implementation doesn't provide that data
(such as when the data is optional), the response will contain an
ASN.1 object that is empty. The tag will be the same as in the
query, and the object will have a length of zero.
The same response is given if the requested data does exist, but the
invoker of the query does not have authorization to access it. See
section 10 for more discussion of authorization mechanisms.
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This allows completely generic queries to be composed without regard
to whether the data is defined or implemented at all of the entities
that will receive the query. All of the available data will be
returned, without generating errors that might otherwise terminate
the processing of the query.
8. QUERY LANGUAGE
The query language is designed to be expressive enough to write
useful queries with, yet simple enough to be easy to implement. The
query processor should be as simple and fast as possible, in order to
avoid placing a burden on the monitored entity, which may be a
critical node such as a gateway.
Although queries are formed in a flexible way using what we term a
'language', this is not a programming language. There are operations
that operate on data, but most other features of programming
languages are not present. In particular:
- Programs are not stored in the query processor.
- The only form of temporary storage is a stack, of limited
depth.
- There are no subroutines.
- There are no explicit control structures defined in the
language.
The central element of the language is the stack. It may contain
templates, (and therefore paths), values, and filters taken from the
query. In addition, it can contain dictionaries (and therefore
arrays) from the data tree. At the beginning of a query, it contains
one item, the root dictionary.
The overall operation consists of reading ASN.1 objects from the
input stream. All objects that aren't opcodes are pushed onto the
stack as soon as they are read. Each opcode is executed immediately
and may remove items from the stack, may generate ASN.1 objects and
send them to the output stream, and may leave items on the stack.
Because each input object is dealt with immediately, portions of the
response may be generated while the query is still being received.
In the descriptions below, operator names are in capital letters,
preceded by the arguments used from the stack and followed by results
left on the stack. For example:
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