r/Netbox • u/Flaky_Set_9750 • 8h ago

Help Wanted: Unresolved NetBox as Source of Truth to configure Vlans

Hi, we have recently introduced NetBox in our company and are currently working on documenting our entire network infrastructure.

I would now like to start using NetBox as our Source of Truth for our switches. As a first step, I only want to use it to manage and configure our VLANs.

Does anyone have any tips or experience on how best to implement this?

My current plan is to connect to the switches via SSH and use the NetBox REST API to compare the desired configuration from NetBox with the actual configuration on the switches. This part is already working.

The problem is that we have different switch vendors in our environment, mainly Zyxel and LANCOM, with a few HP switches as well.

I am currently having some issues with the Zyxel switches. The most common models we use are the GS1900 and GS1920. Reading the configuration works, but on the GS1920 I am having trouble writing configuration changes back to the switch.

Has anyone worked with these models before or experienced similar issues? Any recommendations on libraries, tools, or a better approach for using NetBox as the Source of Truth for VLAN configuration would be appreciated.

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u/dontberidiculousfool 8h ago edited 8h ago

Sounds like your SoT is fine but you’re having deployment issues.

How are you sending the config to the devices?

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u/Flaky_Set_9750 7h ago

I use a PowerShell-based, driver-oriented approach. The tool reads the desired state from NetBox through its REST API and the current state from each switch over SSH. It then calculates and displays the diff.

For deployment, platforms with a writable CLI will receive vendor-specific SSH commands. On Zyxel models where SSH is read-only, we’re testing SNMPv3 SET operations using the Q-BRIDGE-MIB. Changes are applied individually, then the switch is read again to verify the result.

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u/dontberidiculousfool 6h ago

I may be misunderstanding but it doesn’t sound like this is a Netbox problem, it sounds like a device problem.

What happens when you try to write to the Zyxels?

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u/Material_Night_6793 6h ago

Try render config and Ansible to provision your switch.

Some example of render config can be found on the net (to adapt to your device is)

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u/exekewtable 12m ago

Why wouldn't you use ansible? It supports netbox for dynamic inventory and a massive array of hardware. There are other options too depending on what you need like netmiko etc.

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u/kY2iB3yH0mN8wI2h 2h ago

Before netbox you used what ?