Summary

  • BIRD users wanted a standard API instead of scripts that parse a routing daemon's command line.
  • Matejka's harder problem is combining separate configuration models from BIRD, NetworkManager and systemd into one customer-facing router interface.

A routing daemon's command line is useful until another program has to treat it as an API. At RIPE 93, BIRD Team Leader Maria Matejka described BIRD users' request for a standard interface. She mapped three protocol paths, then turned to the integration work they leave: assembling a Linux router's parts behind one coherent front door.

NETCONF has been around for roughly 20 years. Its operations work with XML data; the SSH transport is specified separately. RESTCONF gives clients a REST-like interface over HTTP, including short requests from browser clients. CORECONF takes a smaller-device route with CoAP and CBOR. All three use YANG data models, while each router component keeps its own model tree.

That distinction matters in Matejka's example. A Linux router can include BIRD alongside NetworkManager and systemd. Each component has its own job and data tree. A customer asking to configure the router sees one machine; the software underneath sees several authorities and representations. Matejka said the design she presented had no specified way to merge those trees into one endpoint. She described YANG-based parsers and encoders as possible building blocks for a proxy, not as a finished integration contract.

The IETF specifications draw the boundaries clearly. RFC 6241 defines NETCONF operations and its XML messages; RFC 6242 specifies NETCONF over SSH. RFC 8040 defines RESTCONF over HTTP. YANG describes the data model, while RFC 7951 and RFC 9254 define JSON and CBOR encodings. Those documents specify how a client carries and represents modelled data. Router designers still have to decide which component owns a combined model and how separate trees become one customer interface.

The third route is still unsettled. IETF Datatracker marks CORECONF draft 21 as an expired Internet-Draft, last revised in March 2026. The same record carries a November 2026 working-group milestone for submission to the IESG. That is a live status question for anyone choosing the compact CoAP/CBOR path; the record currently says “expired.”

Matejka's talk makes the missing work concrete: a protocol can standardize the door hardware while each integrator draws the building's floor plan. More formats leave the component join to a router vendor or operator, who must decide which model is canonical, how component boundaries appear, and whether a proxy translates between them.

The RIPE 93 talk and current draft record include no interoperable endpoint test spanning BIRD, NetworkManager and systemd; such a test would show whether the missing composition rule is unfinished design or a practical deployment barrier.

Primary records: RIPE 93 talk and transcript · official transcript · BIRD team roster · RFC 6241 · RFC 6242 · RFC 8040 · RFC 7950 · RFC 7951 · RFC 9254 · CORECONF draft status.