[Kea-users] Depreciated kea-ctrl-agent Required For HA - What The...

[Doug Freed]

On 9/23/25 00:29, Matthew J Black via Kea-users wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> In the latest stable version of Kea ARM (v3.0.1) it says (p59):
> 
> ~~~
> 
> The kea-ctrl-agent is deprecated. As of Kea 2.7.2 the Kea servers: kea- 
> dhcp4, kea-dhcp6, and kea-dhcp-ddns directly support command API 
> connections over HTTPS/HTTP.
> 
> ~~~
> 
> However, I get the impression from Section 17.12 libdhcp_ha.so 
> (p418-456), particularly the sample configuration on p421-423, and 
> Section 17.12.14 Control Agent Configuration (p440-441), that kea-ctrl- 
> agent *is* required.
> 
> So my question is: Which is the case: Is kea-ctrl-agent required for HA, 
> or is kea-ctrl-agent depreciated and thus *not* required for HA; or is 
> kea-ctrl-agent *both* depreciated *and* required for HA, in which case 
> "Wha ?!?!" and what are we supposed to do (assuming we want to use HA 
> but not depreciated modules)?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Dulux-Oz
> 

Dedicated HTTP listeners for HA are available in 2.6 (possibly earlier 
as well, I haven't bothered to look).  They are recommended for 
performance reasons.  In 3.0, the control agent is deprecated, and not 
required for HA regardless of whether you're using dedicated HTTP 
listeners for HA, as daemons can have their own HTTP listeners, instead 
of only listening on Unix sockets and needing the control agent to 
provide HTTP access.  The only thing that requires the control agent in 
3.0 is Stork; this is currently planned to be fixed in the 2.3.1 
development version and the 2.4.0 stable release, though that could 
change before release.

-Doug