NETCONF is an IETF standard protocol for network configuration. It uses XML for data encoding and SSH for transport.
Operations:
- get retrieves running or startup config
- edit-config modifies configuration
- copy-config copies between datastores
- lock/unlock prevents concurrent modifications
- commit applies candidate config to running config
Candidate configuration: NETCONF supports a staging area. You edit the candidate, validate it, then commit. If commit fails, running config is unchanged.