Overview of the Request Procedure

To request information from the NETCONF server, a client application performs the procedures described in the indicated sections:

1. Establishes a connection to the NETCONF server on the routing, switching, or security platform, as described in Connecting to the NETCONF Server.
2. Opens a NETCONF session, as described in Starting the NETCONF Session.
3. If making configuration requests, optionally locks the candidate configuration, as described in Locking the Candidate Configuration.
4. Makes any number of requests one at a time, freely intermingling operational and configuration requests. See Requesting Operational Information and Requesting Configuration Information.

   The application can also intermix requests with configuration changes, which are described in Changing Configuration Information.

5. Accepts the tag stream emitted by the NETCONF server in response to each request and extracts its content, as described in Parsing the NETCONF Server Response.
6. Unlocks the candidate configuration if it is locked, as described in Unlocking the Candidate Configuration. Other users and applications cannot change the configuration while it remains locked.
7. Ends the NETCONF session and closes the connection to the device, as described in Ending a NETCONF Session and Closing the Connection.