Re: Dodgy AS327933 ...?

[Nick Hilliard <nick () foobar org>]

Mike Hammett wrote on 15/08/2023 23:02:
> I'd say it's probably the best router UI ever, but I suppose now we'll 
> find ourselves in a religious argument.

Whatever about the web / winbox UI, there are some fairly serious 
weaknesses in the cli and api:

1. there's no atomic configuration commit + auto rollback.
2. the CLI is non-idempotent, for example if you're in a list context 
and issue the command "remove 1", it will do different things each time 
you execute it.
3. there is no way to delete the configuration tree or sub-trees (e.g. 
"config replace"), which outright blocks the possibility of clean-slate 
reconfiguration.
4. as a consequence of #1 and #3, it's not possible to blindly change 
the config on a routeros device without parsing the existing configuration.

The net outcome is that orchestration is basically impossible on this 
platform, and it's not possible to fix. It would need a complete CLI/API 
redesign.

Nick