Automated validation of service configuration on network devices

Abstract

Due to the significant development of network services in the past few years, their validation has become increasingly difficult. The advent of novel approaches to the issue of validation is therefore vital for keeping services manageable, safe, and reliable. We present a model for the validation of service configurations on network devices. A service configuration is modelled by a tree structure, and its properties are described by validation rules expressed in terms of these tree elements. By using an existing logical formalism called TQL, we have succeeded in expressing complex dependencies between parameters, and in automatically checking these dependencies against real-world network descriptions in feasible time. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2004.