Re: net-policy newbie questions

I am sure Wes (a more approp. and versed responder) is not awake yet...so I will
hazard some answers.

Wes, correct any of my early morning fuzzy-headed-ness.

-G

Brendan Simon wrote:
> I have a few newbie questions regarding net-policy :)
> 
>    1. Is net-policy a service that runs on a network server that then
>       talks to multiple SNMP devices?

yes.

>    2. Is it hierarchical, such that there can be a tree of net-policy
>       servers between the user client and the SNMP device?

I don't think so...though Wes or others may add more here.

>    3. Is the GUI interface built into the server.  eg. http, javascript,
>       etc?


"Built on top of" is more accurate. The server daemons collect data and store it
in a database, and send/set data based on its contents as well. The existing
GUIs (both Perl/Tk and HTML) operates on top of the Postrgres SQL database.

>    4. Is there an API to the server such that a custom GUI client (tk,
>       wxpython, qt, gtk, etc) can be written to run on workstations (eg.
>       MSW, MacOS, Linux, etc) ?

There is an API of sorts which is inherent in the schema of database...and so
yes...in addition to the existing GUIs (which are extensible if you know
perl/QWizard etc.) other custom GUIs could be devised which use the SQL
database...the docs on this interface though need some help.

>    5. Can it be setup or limited to discover/view/set only certain devices?

not sure what "it" is here...but guessing...
no...I dont think so...there is no notion of access control constrained to
certain realms or policies...or based on user...either you are in or not.

There is a notion or "realms" which contain lists of devices over which one or
more policies operates...so there is some granularity and control here to
specify that certain operations(monitoring or control) are constrained to sets
of devices (no protection to enforce boundaries though)

>    6. Is the architecture scalable such that other protocols can be
>       easily plugged in.  eg. WBEM ???


Because the database is the integration interface between
data-collection/data-dissemination and the GUI...it is very conceivable to have
other daemons which use other protocols to operate on, and/or be driven by the
database...that being said, the database schema is very MIB/SNMP oriented and
would prob. need to change to support other protocols on a per realm, or per
device, basis.

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