Kea 1.5.0 is ready for beta testing

Interest in YANG models for standardizing device configuration is exploding at the IETF. At last week’s IETF meeting in Bangkok there were many new drafts proposing YANG support for various technologies. This beta version of Kea features our first ISC YANG model support, for DHCPv4 and DHCPv6.

We are also integrating with Sysrepo, another open source project, that implements a Netconf system for storing and applying configuration data.

The key features in Kea 1.5 are:

• YANG/NETCONF – the ability to store major configuration elements in a YANG model and manipulate it using NETCONF
• Support for global host reservations (previously each host reservation had to be associated with a specific subnet)
• Class commands – a premium new hook that allows dynamic changes to be made to client classes without restarting
• Performance and resiliency improvements to High Availability hook
• A new congestion control feature to mitigate the effects of heavy DHCP traffic conditions
• Improvements to the High Availability feature, including paged updates between HA pairs to alleviate timeouts.

We are eager to get users to field test this release. In particular, we would like feedback on the usability and functionality of the YANG/Netconf feature, and if anyone is able to test Kea under very heavy loads, feedback on how the congestion control works. In our tests we have found it decreases overall throughput at extremely high loads, but in more moderate overload conditions, it improves our ability to process current requests over stale ones.

Users interested in testing the new premium hook for managing client classes, please email to info at isc dot org and ask for a coupon code. This will enable you to download the premium hooks package for free from our website, in exchange for your test feedback.

We are planning to issue a second beta at the end of November, and then a final version in mid-December.

Kea 1.5-beta1 release notes

Download Kea