Distribution Version reporting

Overview

This section provides an overview of odl-distribution-version feature.

A remote user of OpenDaylight usually has access to RESTCONF and NETCONF northbound interfaces, but does not have access to the system OpenDaylight is running on. OpenDaylight has released multiple versions including Service Releases, and there are incompatible changes between them. In order to know which YANG modules to use, which bugs to expect and which workarounds to apply, such user would need to know the exact version of at least one OpenDaylight component.

There are indirect ways to deduce such version, but the direct way is enabled by odl-distribution-version feature. Administrator can specify version strings, which would be available to users via NETCONF, or via RESTCONF if OpenDaylight is configured to initiate NETCONF connection to its config subsystem northbound interface.

By default, users have write access to config subsystem, so they can add, modify or delete any version strings present there. Admins can only influence whether the feature is installed, and initial values.

Config subsystem is local only, not cluster aware, so each member reports versions independently. This is suitable for heterogeneous clusters.

Default config file

Initial version values are set via config file odl-version.xml which is created in $KARAF_HOME/etc/opendaylight/karaf/ upon installation of odl-distribution-version feature. If admin wants to use different content, the file with desired content has to be created there before feature installation happens.

By default, the config file defines two config modules, named odl-distribution-version and odl-odlparent-version.

RESTCONF usage

OpenDaylight config subsystem NETCONF northbound is not made available just by installing odl-distribution-version, but most other feature installations would enable it. RESTCONF interfaces are enabled by installing odl-restconf feature, but that do not allow access to config subsystem by itself.

On single node deployments, installation of odl-netconf-connector-ssh is recommended, which would configure controller-config device and its MD-SAL mount point.

For cluster deployments, installing odl-netconf-clustered-topology is recommended. See documentation for clustering on how to create similar devices for each member, as controller-config name is not unique in that context.

Assuming single node deployment and user located on the same system, here is an example curl command accessing odl-odlparent-version config module:

curl 127.0.0.1:8181/restconf/config/network-topology:network-topology/topology/topology-netconf/node/controller-config/yang-ext:mount/config:modules/module/odl-distribution-version:odl-version/odl-odlparent-version