Configuration Protocol

[Gerry Duprey <gerry@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Howdy,

I'm working on implementing this right now and had a few questions that I
was
hoping someone with some experience with the config protocol might be able
to
help out with.  The docs are pretty clear about the format of the messages,
but a few of the interactions seemed open to some interpretation.

1) Locally stored configuration and startup
Reading the docs, it sounds like if a device can store it's configuration
and is able to restore that config at startup, the device should not go
through the normal 'config.app' heartbeat phase and just go immediately to
hbeat.app "mode" -- is that correct?

The explanation around this in the docs seems to suggest the idea is that
this
can prevent the network from being flooded with configuration data if all
devices turn on at once.

2) Locally storing config -- filters and groups too?
If a device can store it's configuration locally, should it be storing the
groups and filters for the device too?  Since the filters and groups are
delivered as part of the configuration, I could see this as making sense,
but
it's also seems filters & groups are treated a little differently, so I
thought I'd ask.

3) When do filters and groups reset?
If a device received a config.response with configuration data in it, it
seems
clear that any existing configuration values should be cleared out first,
and
then any values found in the configuration message installed.  This should
happen every time a device receives a config.response.

Does this mean that whenever a config.response is received for a device, it
should also clear out it's filters and group settings?  If not, then should
the filters and/or groups only be reset if a config.response has one or
more
filter= or group= items?

And if that last item is true, should all other configuration items be
wiped
out if a config.response message contains ONLY filter= or group= items
(i.e.
no "other" configuration data)?

Hope this all makes sense.  Thanks again for you help.  I'm most of the way
through my implementation and once I get the cross-platform, service/device
oriented framework done in C (I know, yet another framework), I'm going to
start on one in Java too.

Have a grand day,

Gerry

--
Gerry Duprey
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
http://www.cdp1802.org