Parent and child at the same time

[lucix-mich]

Hello community,

I know device bays are not meant to model individual components in a main device. Still, we are using them that way (inventory items are too limited for us). Here, the point is not to enter into this discussion - separate discussion coming along for that ;-).

My point here is: would it be difficult to allow a device to be both parent and child? Other then being able to set these flags, would that have negative consquences for the device model? If not, I would formulate it as a feature request (and maybe look into it).

Thanks and cheers

Michel

[candlerb]

I am pretty sure that a request to turn parent/child into a recursive hierarchy would be rejected.

Child devices are meant to be fully-fledged, independent, manageable devices, with their own IP address and their own independent control planes. They are not meant for things like line cards, and if you use them in that way, lots of things break (one example: LAGs between ports across line cards). They are also not meant for things like SFPs or other modules.

This feature is only intended for where the parent is a chassis or dumb housing, and the children are independent devices like blade servers or modular patch panels.

[lucix-mich]

Hello Brian,

I know about the intention of device bays, which seems to currently be the only use of parent/child relations. I haven't researched or experienced all the limitations, so thanks for mentioning one.

But as can be seen from the recurring discussions about the same topic, namely providing a model for any type of pluggable hardware, there really seems to be a need.

Inventory items don't cut it - we need something that exists as a separate object, has a life of its own. Albeit not necessarily as a managed device.

For what it's worth, cable management (blocks rack units) and patch panels are also modeled as full-fledged devices, although in general they are not managed (haven't seen a managed cable guide at least ;-).

Thanks and cheers

Michel

[candlerb]

Inventory items don't cut it - we need something that exists as a separate object, has a life of its own

I agree, but then that's the feature request you want: to be able to assign an inventory item to a rack or location (make the device assignment optional), and to be able to transfer an inventory item from one device to another.

Interestingly, the data model has for a long time allowed for recursive parent/child hierarchy in inventory items. It originally wasn't exposed in the GUI (#1692) but as of v2.10 it should be.

Extending inventory items with interfaces and front/rearports would be useful too: #824