Re: xAP directory service/config/watchdog

[James <james@xxxxxxx>]

>
>  Would I be able to find out which devices can do OSD requests, and
>  which schema(s) they respond to? James has a mechanism I believe
>  that somebody can say "Hey, who does OSD?" and each
individual
>  responds. Would a directory service do the answering after a xAP
>  node was registered?

While it's not a full mechanism, it does what it needs to. I do think
there should be a formal schema/way to locate apps not based on name
or type but on supported schema. If we do, it should probably be part
of the config schema family so something like

Class=xAPConfig.Query
Locate
{
Schema=message.display
}

I did start on a xap config proposal, with Edward's help, but I was
never entirly happy with it.
It seemed there were 2 ways for config to work. An online or
downloadable database containing all configuration items for each app
and for each revision of each app and that db to be used againts
configuration values received over xAP from the device.The other way
was for all data to come from the device. The first method had the
advantage of alot less xAP packets and the possibility of richer
config options but has alot more administration in getting the db
done. The second method was simpler but much more limited. The other
two config issues hit were dealing with apps with no UID set and no
name, this was partly got around by using a uid of FF000000 and
assuming some random element could be put in the source ( mac
address,ip, pc name etc). The remaining issue was the big issue,  sub
devices. Configuring the master device was easy enough, subs caused
issues. You could make each sub a configuable item just like the
master but then you could endup configuring 255 items. So you would
need a mechanism to groups similar sub devices and configure groups as
a whole.  So now it get to the point, for config to work there needs
to be a heirarchy within a device with devices/sub devices inheriting
from above, in exactly the way ldap/active directory does. For it to
work in a proper xAP sense there can't be a central app so however it
works there will need to be replication of data between multiple
config server and then it all get far too complicated! I'll dig out
the doc that was made as it would be good to get this config issue solved.

On the watchdog/audit/monitoring app, one thing that will make it hard
to really monitor things is that once xAP data goes through a hub you
lose mac address and ip address information.Without these you could
easily miss issues when multiple apps are running on identical
defaults.  Stuart, is there any way of xFx passing this info on somehow?

James