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Commonly confused · DevOps & Automation

NETCONF vs RESTCONF: What's the Difference?

Both are programmatic interfaces for configuring network devices using YANG data models. NETCONF is an RPC-based protocol over SSH that encodes data in XML and supports candidate configurations and transactions. RESTCONF exposes the same YANG data through a RESTful HTTPS API using standard methods and XML or JSON.

NETCONFRESTCONF
TransportSSH (TCP 830)HTTPS (TCP 443)
EncodingXMLXML or JSON
OperationsRPCs: get, get-config, edit-config, commit, lockHTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE
DatastoresRunning, candidate, startupUnified datastore view
TransactionsYes, with candidate config and commitPer-request only
Data modelYANGYANG
StandardRFC 6241RFC 8040
Remember it

NETCONF speaks XML over SSH; RESTCONF speaks REST over HTTPS.

Exam tip

Know port 830 for NETCONF, the HTTP verbs that map to RESTCONF operations, and that both rely on YANG models. Questions may ask which supports network-wide transactions (NETCONF).

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