



OPSAWG                                                       J. Quilbeuf
Internet-Draft                                                    Huawei
Intended status: Standards Track                               B. Claise
Expires: 7 May 2026                                       Everything OPS
                                                                 T. Graf
                                                                Swisscom
                                                                D. Lopez
                                                          Telefonica I+D
                                                                  Q. Sun
                                                           China Telecom
                                                         3 November 2025


              External Trace ID for Configuration Tracing
              draft-ietf-netconf-configuration-tracing-06

Abstract

   Network equipment are often configured by a variety of network
   management systems (NMS), protocols, and teams.  If a network issue
   arises (e.g., because of a wrong configuration change), it is
   important to quickly identify the root cause and obtain the reason
   for pushing that modification.  Another potential network issue can
   stem from concurrent NMSes with overlapping intents, each having
   their own tasks to perform.  In such a case, it is important to map
   the respective modifications to its originating NMS.

   This document specifies a NETCONF mechanism to automatically map the
   configuration modifications to their source, up to a specific NMS
   change request.  Such a mechanism is required, in particular, for
   autonomous networks to trace the source of a particular configuration
   change that led to an anomaly detection.  This mechanism facilitates
   the troubleshooting, the post-mortem analysis, and in the end the
   closed loop automation required for self-healing networks.  The
   specification also includes a YANG module that is meant to map a
   local configuration change to the corresponding trace id, up to the
   controller or even the orchestrator.

Discussion Venues

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/netconf-wg/configuration-tracing.







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Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 May 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Use cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Configuration Mistakes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.2.  Concurrent NMS Configuration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.3.  Conflicting Intents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.4.  Not a use case: Onboarding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Relying on W3C Trace Context to Trace Configuration
           Modifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Existing configuration metadata on device . . . . . . . .   6
     4.2.  Client ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.3.  Instantiating the YANG module . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.4.  Using the YANG module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  YANG module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.1.  Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9



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     5.2.  YANG module ietf-external-transaction-id  . . . . . . . .  10
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   8.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   9.  Open Issues / TODO  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   10. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   11. Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Appendix A.  Changes between revisions  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Appendix B.  Example of NETCONF message . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18

1.  Introduction

   Issues arising in the network, for instance violation of some SLAs,
   might be due to some configuration modification.  In the context of
   automated networks, the assurance system needs not only to identify
   and revert the problematic configuration modification, but also to
   make sure that it won't happen again and that the fix will not
   disrupt other services.  To cover the last two points, it is
   imperative to understand the cause of the problematic configuration
   change.  Indeed, the first point, making sure that the configuration
   modification will not be repeated, cannot be ensured if the cause for
   pushing the modification in the first place is not known.  Ensuring
   the second point, not disrupting other services, requires as well
   knowing if the configuration modification was pushed in order to
   support new services.  Therefore, we need to be able to trace a
   configuration modification on a device back to the reason that
   triggered that modification, for instance in a NMS, whether the
   controller or the orchestrator.

   This specification focuses only on configuration pushed via NETCONF
   [RFC6241] or RESTCONF [RFC8040].  The rationale for this choice is
   that NETCONF is better suited for normalization than other protocols
   (SNMP, CLI).  Another reason is that the notion of trace context,
   useful to track configuration modifications, has been ported to
   NETCONF in [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension] and RESTCONF in
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-restconf-trace-ctx-headers].

   The same network element, or NETCONF [RFC6241] server, can be
   configured by different NMSs or NETCONF clients.  If an issue arises,
   one of the starting points for investigation is the configuration
   modification on the devices supporting the impacted service.  In the
   best case, there is a dedicated user for each client and the
   timestamp of the modification allows tracing the problematic
   modification to its cause.  In the worst case, everything is done by
   the same user and some more correlations must be done to trace the
   problematic modification to its source.



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   This document specifies a mechanism to automatically map the
   configuration modifications to their source, up to a specific NMS
   service request.  Practically, this mechanism annotates configuration
   changes on the configured element with sufficient information to
   unambiguously identify the corresponding transaction, if any, on the
   element that requested the configuration modification.  It reuses the
   concept of Trace Context [W3C-Trace-Context] applied to NETCONF as in
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension] The information needed to
   trace the configuration is stored in a new YANG module that maps a
   local configuration change to some additional metadata.  The
   additional metadata contains the trace ID, and, if the local change
   is not the beginning of the trace, the ID of the client that
   triggered the local-change.  In that sense, it is an instance of the
   YANG DataStore implementation of the Trace Context as proposed in
   Section 1.2 of [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension].

2.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   This document uses the terms client and server from [RFC6241].

   This document uses the terms transaction and Transaction ID from
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-transaction-id].

   This document uses the term trace ID from [W3C-Trace-Context].

   Local Commit ID  Identifier of a local configuration change on a
      Network Equipment, Controller, Orchestrator or any other device or
      software handling configuration.  Such an identifier is usually
      present in devices that can show a history of the configuration
      changes, to identify one such configuration change.

3.  Use cases

   This document was written with autonomous networks in mind.  We
   assume that an existing monitoring or assurance system, such as
   described in [RFC9417], is able to detect and report network
   anomalies , e.g. SLA violations, intent violations, network failure,
   or simply a customer issue.  Here are the use cases for the proposed
   YANG module; they are extensions of the "Provisioning root cause
   analysis" use case presented in Section 1.3.1 of
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension].




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3.1.  Configuration Mistakes

   Taking into account that many network anomalies are due to
   configuration mistakes, this mechanism allows to find out whether the
   offending configuration modification was triggered by a tracing-
   enabled client/NMS.  In such a case, we can map the offending
   configuration modification id on a server/NE to a local configuration
   modification id on the client/NMS.  Assuming that this mechanism (the
   YANG module) is implemented on the controller, we can recursively
   find, in the orchestrator, the latest (set of of) service request(s)
   that triggered the configuration modification.  Whether this/those
   service request(s) are actually the root cause needs to be
   investigated.  However, they are a good starting point for
   troubleshooting, post-mortem analysis, and in the end the closed loop
   automation, which is absolutely required for self-healing networks.

3.2.  Concurrent NMS Configuration

   Building on the previous use case is the situation where two NMS's,
   unaware of each other, are configuring a common router, each
   believing that they are the only NMS for the common router.  So one
   configuration executed by the NMS1 is overwritten by the NMS2, which
   in turn is overwritten by NMS1, etc.

3.3.  Conflicting Intents

   Autonomous networks will be solved first by assuring intent per
   specific domain; for example data center, core, cloud, etc.  This
   last use case is a more specific "Concurrent NMS configuration" use
   case where assuring domain intent breaks the entire end to end
   service, even if the domain-specific controllers are aware of each
   other.

3.4.  Not a use case: Onboarding

   During onboarding, a newly added device is likely to receive a
   multiple configuration message, as it needs to be fully configured.
   Our use cases focus more on what happens after the initial
   configuration is done, i.e. when the "stable" configuration is
   modified.

4.  Relying on W3C Trace Context to Trace Configuration Modifications









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4.1.  Existing configuration metadata on device

   This document assumes that NETCONF clients or servers (orchestrators,
   controllers, devices, ...) have some kind of mechanism to record the
   modifications done to the configuration.  For instance, devices
   typically have a history of configuration changes and this history
   associates a locally unique identifier to some metadata, such as the
   timestamp of the modification, the user doing the modification or the
   protocol used for the modification.  Such a locally unique identifier
   is a Local Commit ID, we assume that it exists on the platform.  This
   Local Commit ID is the link between the module presented in this
   draft and the device-specific way of storing configuration changes.

4.2.  Client ID

   This document assumes that each NETCONF client for which
   configuration must be traced (for instance orchestrator and
   controllers) has a unique client ID among the other NETCONF clients
   in the network.  Such an ID could be an IP address or a host name.
   The mechanism for providing and defining this client ID is out of
   scope of the current document.

4.3.  Instantiating the YANG module

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension] defines a NETCONF extension
   providing the trace context from [W3C-Trace-Context].  Using this
   mechanism, the NETCONF server captures the trace-id, when available,
   and maps it to a local commit ID, by populating the YANG module.

   The trace context from W3C provides a parent-id.  This parent-id does
   not identify a particular server or NMS but rather one request in the
   chain of HTTP requests constituting the trace.  Similarly to the
   passing of the trace context in
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension], we propose an XML attribute
   on NETCONF messages to pass the client-id.  The attribute name is
   "client-id" and the namespace is the namespace of the YANG module
   from Section 5, namely 'urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-external-
   transaction-id'.  An example of a commit message including the
   client-id is shown in Figure 4.












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                            +---------------+
                            | Orchestrator  |
                            +---------------+
                                   | tr-1, tx-1
                                   v
                            +---------------+
                            |   Controller  |
                            +---------------+
                   tr-1, tx-2 |           | tr-1, tx-3
                              v           v
                           +-----+     +-----+
                           | NE1 |     | NE2 |
                           +-----+     +-----+


     Figure 1: Example of Hierarchical Configuration. tx: transaction.
                                 tr: trace.

   In Figure 1, the transactions 'tx-1', 'tx-2' and 'tx-3' are sent via
   NETCONF.  The NETCONF RPC used, most likely 'commit' in our use case,
   is annotated with the 'traceparent' annotation as defined in
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension].  The traceparent annotation
   has the same trace id 'tr-1' for each of these transactions.
   Additionally, for each transaction the client id is passed via the
   'client-id' annotation.  For 'tx-1' the client-id is the id of the
   Orchestrator.  For 'tx-2' and 'tx-3', the client is the id of the
   Controller.

   It is technically possible that several clients push configuration to
   the candidate configuration datastore and only one of them commits
   the changes to the running configuration datastore.  From the running
   configuration datastore perspective, which is the effective one,
   there is a single modification, but caused by several clients, which
   means that this modification should have several corresponding
   client-ids.  Although, this case is technically possible, it is a bad
   practice.  We won't cover it in this document.  In other terms, we
   assume that a given configuration modification on a server is caused
   by a single client, and thus has a single corresponding client-id.

4.4.  Using the YANG module

   The YANG module defined below enables tracing a configuration change
   in a Network Equipment back to its origin, for instance a service
   request in an orchestrator.  To do so, the Anomaly Detection System
   (ADS) should have, for each client-id, access to some credentials
   enabling read access to the YANG module for configuration tracing on
   that client.  It should as well have access to the network equipment
   in which an issue is detected.



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                                                     +---------------+
        .----------------[5]match tr-1-------------->|               |
        |                                            | Orchestrator  |
        | ----------------[6]commit-id---------------|               |
        | |                                          +---------------+
        | |                                                | tx-1
        | |                                                v
        | |                                          +---------------+
        | |   .-----------[3] match tr-1------------>|               |
        | |   |                                      |   Controller  |
        | |   | .-----------[4] c-id O tr-1----------|               |
        | |   | |                                    +---------------+
        | |   | |                                          | tx-2
        | v   | v                                          v
      +-----------+                                      +----+
      | Anomaly   |--[1] match commit-id before time t-->|    |
      | Detection |                                      | NE |
      | System    |<--------- [2] c-id C tr-1------------|    |
      +----------+                                       +----+


        Figure 2: Example of Configuration Tracing. tr: trace-id, C:
      Controller, O: orchestrator.  The number between square brackets
                    refer to steps in the listing below.

   The steps for a software to trace a configuration modification in a
   Network Equipment back to a service request are illustrated in
   Figure 2.  They are detailed below.

   1.  The Anomaly Detection System (ADS) identifies the commit-id that
       created an issue, for instance by looking for the last commit-id
       occurring before the issue was detected.  The ADS queries the NE
       for the trace id and client id associated to the commit-id.

   2.  The ADS receives the trace-id and the client-id.  In Figure 2,
       that step would receive the trace-id tr-1 and the id of the
       Controller as a result.  If there is no associated client-id, the
       change was not done by a client compatible with the present
       draft, and the investigation stops here.

   3.  The ADS queries the client identified by the client-id found at
       the previous step, looking for a match of the trace-id from the
       previous step.  In Figure 2, for that step, the software would
       look for the trace-id tr-1 stored in the Controller.







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   4.  From that query, the ADS knows the local-commit-id on the client
       (Controller in our case).  Since the local-commit-id is
       associated to a client-id pointing to the Orchestrator, the ADS
       continues the investigation.

   5.  The ADS queries the Orchestrator, trying to find a match for the
       trace-id tr-1.

   6.  Finally, the ADS receives the commit-id from the Orchestrator
       that ultimately caused the issue in the NE.  Since there is no
       associated client-id, the investigation stops here.  The
       modification associated to the commit-id, for instance a service
       request, is now available for further manual or automated
       analysis, such as analyzing the root cause of the issue.

   Note that step 5 and 6 are actually a repetition of step 3 and 4.
   The general algorithm is to continue looking for a client until no
   more client-id can be found in the current element.

5.  YANG module

   We present in this section the YANG module for modelling the
   information about the configuration modifications.

5.1.  Overview

   The tree representation [RFC8340] of our YANG module is depicted in
   Figure 3

   module: ietf-external-transaction-id
     +--ro external-transactions-id
        +--ro configuration-change* [local-commit-id]
           +--ro local-commit-id    string
           +--ro timestamp?         yang:date-and-time
           +--ro trace-parent
           |  +--ro version?       hex-digits
           |  +--ro trace-id?      hex-digits
           |  +--ro parent-id?     hex-digits
           |  +--ro trace-flags?   hex-digits
           +--ro client-id?         string


       Figure 3: Tree representation of ietf-external-transaction-id
                                YANG module

   The local-commit-id represents the local id of the configuration
   changes, which is device-specific.  It can be used to retrieve the
   local configuration changes that happened during that transaction.



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   The trace-parent is present to identify the trace associated to the
   local-commit-id.  This trace-parent can be transmitted by a client or
   created by the current server.  In Section 4.4, the most important
   field in trace-parent is the trace-id.  We also included the other
   fields for trace-parent as defined in [W3C-Trace-Context] for the
   sake of completion.  In some cases, for instance direct configuration
   of the device, the device may choose to not include the trace-id.

   The presence of a client-id indicates that the trace-parent has been
   transmitted by that client.  If the trace is initiated by the current
   server, there is no associated client-id.

   Even if this document focuses only on NETCONF or RESTCONF, the use
   cases defined in Section 3 are not specific to NETCONF or RESTCONF
   and the mechanism described in this document could be adapted to
   other configuration mechanisms.  For instance, a configuration
   modification pushed via CLI can be identified via a label, which
   could contain the trace-parent.  As such cases are difficult to
   standardize, we won't cover them in this document.

5.2.  YANG module ietf-external-transaction-id

   <CODE BEGINS> file "ietf-external-transaction-id@2021-11-03.yang"
   module ietf-external-transaction-id {
     yang-version 1.1;
     namespace
       "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-external-transaction-id";
     prefix ext-txid;

     import ietf-yang-types {
       prefix yang;
       reference
         "RFC 6991: Common YANG Data Types, Section 3";
     }

     organization
       "IETF NETCONF Working Group";
     contact
       "WG Web:   <https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/netconf/>
        WG List:  <mailto:netconf@ietf.org>
        Author:   Benoit Claise  <mailto:benoit.claise@huawei.com>
        Author:   Jean Quilbeuf  <mailto:jean.quilbeuf@huawei.com>";
     description
       "This module enables tracing of configuration changes in a
        network for the sake of automated correlation between
        configuration changes and the external request that triggered
        that change.




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        The module stores the identifier of the trace, if any, that
        triggered the change in a device. If that trace-id was provided
        by a client, (i.e. not created locally by the server), the id
        of that client is stored as well to indicated which client
        triggered the configuration change.

        Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as
        authors of the code.  All rights reserved.

        Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
        without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject
        to the license terms contained in, the Revised BSD License
        set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions
        Relating to IETF Documents
        (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).
        This version of this YANG module is part of RFC XXXX; see the
        RFC itself for full legal notices.  ";

     revision 2022-10-20 {
       description
         "Initial revision";
       reference
         "RFC xxxx: External Trace ID for Configuration Tracing";
     }

     typedef hex-digits {
       type string {
         pattern '[0-9a-f]*';
       }
       description
         "A string composed of hexadecimal digits. Digits represented by
          letters are restricted to lowercase so that a single
          representation of a given value is allowed. This enables using
          the string equality to check equality of the represented
          values.";
     }

     grouping trace-parent-g {
       description
         "Trace parent frow the W3C trace-context recommandation.
          Follows the format version 00.";
       leaf version {
         type hex-digits {
           length "2";
         }
         must "../version = '00'";
         description
           "Version of the trace context. Must be 00 to match the



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            format described in this module.";
       }
       leaf trace-id {
         type hex-digits {
           length "32";
         }
         must "../trace-id != '00000000000000000000000000000000'";
         description
           "Trace ID that is common for every transaction that is
            part of the configuration chain. This value can be used
            to match a local commit id to a commit local to another
            system.";
       }
       leaf parent-id {
         type hex-digits {
           length "16";
         }
         description
           "ID of the request (client-side) that lead to configuring
            the server hosting this module.";
       }
       leaf trace-flags {
         type hex-digits {
           length "2";
         }
         description
           "Flags enabled for this trace. See W3C reference for the
            details about flags.";
       }
     }

     container external-transactions-id {
       config false;
       description
         "Contains the IDs of configuration transactions that are
          external to the device.";
       list configuration-change {
         key "local-commit-id";
         description
           "List of configuration changes, identified by their
            local-commit-id";
         leaf local-commit-id {
           type string;
           description
             "Stores the identifier as saved by the server. Can be used
              to retrieve the corresponding changes using the server
              mechanism if available.";
         }



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         leaf timestamp {
           type yang:date-and-time;
           description
             "A timestamp that can be used to further filter change
              events.";
         }
         container trace-parent {
           description
             "Trace parent associated to the local-commit-id. If a
              client ID is present as well, the trace context was
              transmitted by that client. If not, the trace context was
              created locally.

              This trace-parent must come from the trace context of the
              request actually modifying the running configuration
              datastore. This request might be an edit-config or a
              commit depending on whether the candidate datastore is
              used.";
           uses trace-parent-g;
         }
         leaf client-id {
           type string;
           description
             "ID of the client that originated the modification, to
              further query information about the corresponding
              change.

              This data node is present only when the configuration was
              pushed by a compatible system.";
         }
       }
     }
   }
   <CODE ENDS>

6.  Security Considerations

   This section is modeled after the template described in Section 3.7
   of [I-D.ietf-netmod-rfc8407bis].

   The "ietf-external-transaction-id" module defines a data model that
   is designed to be accessed via YANG-based management protocols, such
   as NETCONF [RFC6241] and RESTCONF[RFC8040].  These protocols have to
   use a secure transport layer (e.g., SSH [RFC6242], TLS [RFC8446] and
   QUIC [RFC9000]) and have to use mutual authentication.






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   The Network Configuration Access Control Model (NACM) [RFC8341]
   provides the means to restrict access for particular NETCONF or
   RESTCONF users to a preconfigured subset of all available NETCONF or
   RESTCONF protocol operations and content.

   Some of the readable data nodes in this YANG module may be considered
   sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments.  It is thus
   important to control read access (e.g., via get, get-config, or
   notification) to these data nodes.  Specifically, the following
   subtrees and data nodes have particular sensitivities/
   vulnerabilities:

   *  external-transactions-id/configuration-change exposes information
      about which user or external system can configure the device and
      could help an attacker to send its own configuration to the
      device.  It could also give some information about the
      architecture of the configuration, i.e. what are the controllers
      and the orchestrators.

7.  IANA Considerations

   RFC Ed.: replace XXXX with actual RFC number and remove this note.

   IANA is requested to register the following URI in the "ns"
   subregistry within the "IETF XML Registry" [RFC3688]:

           URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-external-transaction-id
           Registrant Contact:  The IESG.
           XML: N/A; the requested URI is an XML namespace.

   IANA is requested to register the following YANG module in the "YANG
   Module Names" subregistry [RFC6020] within the "YANG Parameters"
   registry.

        Name: ietf-external-transaction-id
        Maintained by IANA?  N
        Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-external-transaction-id
        Prefix: ext-txid
        Reference: RFC XXXX

8.  Contributors

9.  Open Issues / TODO

   This section is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   None




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10.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-restconf-trace-ctx-headers]
              Gagliano, R., Larsson, K., and J. Lindblad, "RESTCONF
              Extension to Support Trace Context Headers", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-netconf-restconf-
              trace-ctx-headers-07, 19 October 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-netconf-
              restconf-trace-ctx-headers-07>.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension]
              Gagliano, R., Larsson, K., and J. Lindblad, "NETCONF
              Extension to support Trace Context propagation", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-
              extension-05, 19 October 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-netconf-
              trace-ctx-extension-05>.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-transaction-id]
              Lindblad, J., "Transaction ID Mechanism for NETCONF", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-netconf-
              transaction-id-07, 19 October 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-netconf-
              transaction-id-07>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC6241]  Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed.,
              and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol
              (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6241>.

   [RFC6242]  Wasserman, M., "Using the NETCONF Protocol over Secure
              Shell (SSH)", RFC 6242, DOI 10.17487/RFC6242, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6242>.

   [RFC8040]  Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M., and K. Watsen, "RESTCONF
              Protocol", RFC 8040, DOI 10.17487/RFC8040, January 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8040>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.





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   [RFC8340]  Bjorklund, M. and L. Berger, Ed., "YANG Tree Diagrams",
              BCP 215, RFC 8340, DOI 10.17487/RFC8340, March 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8340>.

   [RFC8341]  Bierman, A. and M. Bjorklund, "Network Configuration
              Access Control Model", STD 91, RFC 8341,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8341, March 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8341>.

   [RFC8446]  Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
              Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.

   [W3C-Trace-Context]
              "W3C Recommendation on Trace Context", 23 November 2021,
              <https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/REC-trace-context-
              1-20211123/>.

11.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-netmod-rfc8407bis]
              Bierman, A., Boucadair, M., and Q. Wu, "Guidelines for
              Authors and Reviewers of Documents Containing YANG Data
              Models", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              netmod-rfc8407bis-28, 5 June 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-netmod-
              rfc8407bis-28>.

   [RFC3688]  Mealling, M., "The IETF XML Registry", BCP 81, RFC 3688,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3688, January 2004,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3688>.

   [RFC6020]  Bjorklund, M., Ed., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for
              the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6020, October 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6020>.

   [RFC9000]  Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
              Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9000>.

   [RFC9417]  Claise, B., Quilbeuf, J., Lopez, D., Voyer, D., and T.
              Arumugam, "Service Assurance for Intent-Based Networking
              Architecture", RFC 9417, DOI 10.17487/RFC9417, July 2023,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9417>.





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Appendix A.  Changes between revisions

   This section is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   05 -> 06

   *  Change Benoit's affiliation

   04 -> 05

   *  Fix security considerations template

   03 -> 04

   *  Add security and IANA considerations

   01 -> 02

   *  Remove YANG specific annotation for the mechanism to pass the
      client-id.

   *  Align with NETCONF Trace context draft.

   00(WG adoption) -> 01

   *  Define mechanism to pass the client-id.

   01 -> 02

   *  Switch to trace-parent instead of transaction id for tracing
      configuration

   00 -> 01

   *  Define Parent and Child Transaction

   *  Context for the "local-commit-id" concept

   *  Feedback from Med, both in text and YANG module

Appendix B.  Example of NETCONF message










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   <rpc xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" message-id="1"
        xmlns:w3ctc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:w3ctc:1.0"
        xmlns:ext-txid=
          "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-external-transaction-id"
        w3ctc:traceparent=
          "00-4bf92f3577b34da6a3ce929d0e0e4736-00f067aa0ba902b7-01"
        ext-txid:client-id="controller-01">
     <commit/>
   </rpc>


          Figure 4: Example of NETCONF commit RPC with annotations

   In Figure 4, we present an RPC annotated with the traceparent and the
   client-id.  The traceparent example is taken from
   [I-D.ietf-netconf-trace-ctx-extension].  The client-id annotation is
   defined in our YANG module.  Here the client-id passed is
   'controller-01'.

Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to thank Mohamed Boucadair, Jan Linblad and
   Roque Gagliano for their reviews and propositions.

Authors' Addresses

   Jean Quilbeuf
   Huawei
   Email: jean.quilbeuf@huawei.com


   Benoit Claise
   Everything OPS
   Email: benoit@everything-ops.net


   Thomas Graf
   Swisscom
   Binzring 17
   CH-8045 Zurich
   Switzerland
   Email: thomas.graf@swisscom.com









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   Diego R. Lopez
   Telefonica I+D
   Don Ramon de la Cruz, 82
   Madrid  28006
   Spain
   Email: diego.r.lopez@telefonica.com


   Qiong Sun
   China Telecom
   Email: sunqiong@chinatelecom.cn








































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