Refactor user input files to support more input format in the configuration files

[dgarros]

Hi
As we are looking to support more input formats like SNMP or Openconfig, we need to extend the the user configuration files (hosts.yaml, credentials.yaml, commands.yaml) to support new type of data.

Currently the logic to extract these information in embedded into the python script open-nti.py along with Netconf collector.
I think we should separate these 2 functions into:

• 1 script to read all user input files and determine what needs to be done on which device based on tags
• 1 script to collect information over netconf

As a middle man between these scripts I would recommend to use a configuration database like etcd. Etcd provide a very powerful key-value store.
Moving forward it will be easier to add other consumer for the configurations data like the telegraf SNMP plugin.

Comments, ideas, concerns ?
Damien

[3fr61n]

Does telegraf support etcd? or should we build a scripts that does that get the config parameters and then configure telegraf?

PS: So far I found influxdata/telegraf#193 , and influxdata/telegraf#651

[dgarros]

@3fr61n

I don't think telegraf support etcd directly, but I think we should be able to use confD
https://github.com/kelseyhightower/confd
It's a tool that is able to monitor an ETCD instance and generate dynamically configuration file of any sort. it would work with both fluentd and telegraf
If a value changes in ETCD, I believe it's able detect it and regenerate the configuration automatically.

Never used it but so far it looks perfect for the job