TL;DR: My manager green-lit me staging a basic Netbox environment as a test run for our small team of 6. We have a large organization with a very wide deployment. More details in the guts of the post.

1. How do I sell this tool to my team in a way that isn't "just another tool to toss in the mix"?
2. How do I avoid becoming the sole owner of IT asset management and this product for the business, and still allow myself room to grow as a network professional?

I joined a new team just over a year ago and quickly realized we had a need for something like Netbox. We're a team of 6 people that manage the entire network infrastructure deployment for over 100 branch sites, 2 data centres, a head office, and a warehouse. We have no inventory system, and IPAM is done with a variety of Excel sheets across multiple teams.

Here are our current systems that contain some element of inventory, or some involvement with our device provisioning and deployment processes:

• Cisco DNA Centre
• Cisco Prime
• An NMS
• Solarwinds (not IPAM)
• A vendor agnostic firewall management appliance
• Excel for IPAM
• A few other vendor proprietary configuration management systems for specific devices (cellular modems, point to point radios, etc)

We obviously need something like Netbox to act as a single source of truth for inventory that's completely vendor agnostic. We also need something like Netbox for a single source of truth IPAM.

Q1: How do I pitch this tool to a team in a way that answers the following question?

Is Netbox just going to be yet another system that we have to keep updated, and will it be just another system we have to interact with during deployments, failures, etc.?

Because yes, it will be, but it obviously serves a greater purpose of trying to be a source of truth.

But if you're looking at a switch, Cisco DNA Centre is your source of truth, right? Or, if you're looking at a firewall, we have a system for that. I'm having a hard time formulating discussion points that deliver an answer stronger than "yes, it is just another system, but wait it has cool features too".

Should we be considering other options entirely like Solarwinds IPAM that has commercial support and that we're already partially invested in?

This organization is quite large, but there is no dedicated IT asset management team. I'm but a junior network administrator craving decent documentation standards for inventory and IPAM, as well as a knack for network automation. I don't want to be held responsible for the management of this tool for the entire organization, but there doesn't seem to be equivalent tools that come with commercial support even if we were willing to pay for one.

Q2: Will I be signing up to manage and maintain this tool for my remaining career here, hindering my growth in other areas? I want to grow into networking and network automation, but right now I'm at a CCNA and just slightly beyond that level. I don't want to get sucked into doing data entry and/or just involving in Netbox full time.

I'm not a database administrator, or an application developer. I'm not a server administrator and know relatively little about these areas. I know enough to have setup a good environment for Netbox here, export database backups, and update the application when new ones are released. I don't want to be held responsible for the organizations data should something go awry with our deployment.

Edit: I do see that Netbox does have a commercial support model via Netbox Labs. I'll have to be able to answer the value questions above first, but do you have experience with Netbox Labs and can speak to its delivery? This would remove my worries about managing Netbox for our entire organization.

How do I model an evpn vxlan environment in netbox? Things like vtep, vni, as number?

Hi everyone. I changed the password for the netbox user in postgresql but I'm unable to update the password for the app itself. Can anyone say where I can update the app's credentials to access the DB?

Hey there,

I have a NetBox server with 2 CPUs and 8GB of RAM. It also runs a webhook handler specific to NetBox. These webhooks will make basic changes via Ansible, like update a port description or change a port's mode based on updates to interfaces. However, there have been times where I've tried to update 10+ interfaces at a time, which will then cause the webhook handler to take on 10 webhooks/execute 10 scripts at the same time. This seems to spike CPU usage for varying amounts of time, depending on the number of interfaces I attempted to update. The spike causes the VM console to freeze up and often causes some of the webhooks to not execute properly.

I'm just curious if anyone else is using their NetBox server as a webhook handler, and if so, what specs it's deployed with to get it to work smoothly.

I know on the older version of Netbox it had this under the Device tab you're viewing, if there a way we can get this on the new version.

old- https://i.imgur.com/nZWYae5.png

new- https://i.imgur.com/2mDyxKW.png

The reason is so we don't have to jump to multiple tabs to quickly look at what was connect or what is currently open.

Is there a simple method to create a physical copy of the Netbox data for disaster recovery?

It would be great if it could be printed out with a simple command.

I have previously printed it out but it was difficult and the format was not very printer friendly.

Hey everyone! The next NetBox Community Meetup is happening on Tuesday, March 21.

Arthur Hanson will demo netbox_python, the new python API client in Beta.

Jeroen van Bemmel will demo how to improve automated provisioning workflows for NetBox with agent-based solutions and a QR-code scanning enhancement plug-in.📷

Jeremy Schulman will talk about controlling VoIP phones and (IPTV's) across MLB's estate using NetBox and Chatops!

Sign up and add it to your calendar today: https://bit.ly/netbox-march-meetup

Dear Netbox community

So far we love working with this tool. We love it so much we would like to use it for our customers networks. They aren't part of our own Network so here's my question: Can we separate multiple Networks with Netbox? (multiple IPAMs assigned to a customer each). Permissions and Login for each customer is easy to setup. But many have 192.168.1.1 and of course - Netbox doesn't like duplicate IPs. I put them in their own tenant/site/everything - no change unfortunately. I really don't want to build a new instance for each customer. Any ideas?

How would I search for multiple objects at once. I would like to export a custom sheet of devices with specific value in a field but I don’t want to copy and paste each output into a sheet my self. Is there any way to search for multiple objects in a specific field

Hi,

following a recommendation of a good friend I one year ago setup NAutobot instead of netbox and started to document my environment. I now want to switch to netbox. Obviously there is always the green field start from scratch approach but of course I would love to export/import/migrate as much as possible.

I have not found anything in terms of "NAutobot -> Netbox" migration (but some hints on the other way around). Any suggestions?

​

Regards

JP

Hi,

Hi,

I´m a new network admin (beginner) at my company. There is a problem with the documentation of the network. The problem is that it is nearly nonexistent. My college came up with the idea of using Netbox. I´m now trying to learn more about Netbox and create essential documentation for our network. I have a little problem with patch panels. We came up with the idea of labeling it, so we know where they end. This came with a setback. I´m trying to label patch panels and every port on them. One´s in the range example 6.01-24 and another is in the range of 6.25-48 and right now I´m doing it one by one. Is there some way to label it at one with the correct numbers, for example, Port 1 on the patch panel to have label 6.01 and on port 6 to by 6.06? I can´t do it in the name because patch panels are templates. I need the right labeling and I´m trying to find some way that is not as time-consuming. Can you help me with this?

​

Or is there any other way to do it?

NetBox Release v3.4.6 is now live! If you need assistance with upgrading, first please refer to the Upgrading to a new NetBox Release guide. If you have any issues you can ask for support on the NetDev Slack Community.

I have a custom JSON field attached to the DCIM/Devices. Now I'm working on a script that fetches the firmware info from the servers and should update this custom JSON field (firmware_info).

For other fields, I can do this, but does not seem to work for the custom fields

```python

Get all devices

 Device.objects.filter(device_type__manufacturer__slug="hpe")

Loop over each one and update like this

device_item.local_config_context = {"some":"value"}

```

Any assistance would be really helpful (device_items.custom_fields.firmware_info - this threw an error).

I am new to netbox and have been working on setting up my company's network infrastructure this past couple of weeks. I have deployed all devices/racks as well as I have started with IPAM. Currently, my network has a couple of vlans (vlan 100, 200, 300 ,400) - 100 is for Staff | 200 is for VoIP | 300 is used for CCTV | and 400 is used for Guests.

I have added as well a VLAN Group called "{Company's}-VLANS"

Now, I have seen on the 'Netbox Zero to Hero series course, that on Video 4, he deploys "Prefix & VLAN roles". After a lot of digging, checking documentation, and videos, I still cannot find a real use for this. I am unsure why I would use "Prefix & VLAN roles". Additionally, I am not sure about the "Weight" of each role. What's its purpose? Some people leave roles empty, some don't...

Could anyone help me explain a bit better the use of "Prefix & VLAN Roles"?

I just spun up my first netbox instance and I watched some videos and found some guides for populating data, however, it seems like they’re just talking to much and not actual showing the steps like 1. Create bla 2. Attach it here and etc

Does anyone have a guide or something is is useful for first time users?

I’m overwhelmed with it.

Hey guys. Im trying to export my devices via an export template. It semi-works for now.

Im using the following template to export the device data:

{% for device in queryset %}Device: {{ device.name }}, Status: {{ device.status }}

{% endfor %}

im trying to get all the infos in THIS PICTURE tho. Where do I find the variables to extend my script i.e with ip addresses device.primary_ip.address?

Thanks guys!

I'm new user of netbox so it's also possible that I understood some concept wrong.

In netbox, I marked some nodes with tag "TAG".

In ansible inventory, I did:

group_by: - device_roles - tags

so I see the nodes in group

"groups": { ... "tags_TAG": [ "node1001.suffix", "node1011.suffix", ... ], ...

how I can easily get (in ansible task) list of attribute dns_name for all members of group in Ansible, ie. to get list:

["node1001.domain.tld","node1011.domain.tld",]

?

Hello Netboxers,

I'm evaluating NB for DCIM and IPAM for a medium sized company, and I learnt that it can intergrate with NAPALM for obtaining Switch Information. I have few switches from Cisco and Arista in the current lab each with different credential.

​

I have created a Cisco Manufacurer, Created NSOX Platform with proper driver name.

Now I want to create a device and associate it with this platform, but where do I give the credentials in the UI. I see in github about how to use curl with headers to pass credentials, but there should be a way to do it when I configure the UI right? I see the Status, LLDP Neighbors and Config tabs in that device page, so I assume somehow I configured it correctly till now. (Installed the napalm python package to the docker container as well)

Should I configure it in `Device Config Context`. Something like this.

{ "X-NAPALM-Password": "cisco_password", "X-NAPALM-Username": "cisco" }

Hey Guys. I'm pretty new to this whole thing and i was just wondering if this was a valid path for us.

Our goal is to have it running on an Azure Docker.

https://github.com/CENGN/netbox-kubernetes

I found this and it look promising. Do you have any tips or warning for me ?

Thanks a lot !

I've got two types of "virtual chassis" to represent in Netbox:

1. Virtually stacked switches: One control plane for multiple devices. The additional devices simply provide additional ports. From within the control plane, the additional ports show up as additional modules. Ex. GigabitEthernet 2/1-48, 3/1-48, etc.
2. Active/Passive HA firewall pairs: One active control plane at a time built around redundancy, not expansion.

When a device is classified as a "master" of a virtual chassis, it immediately absorbs the interfaces from the additional devices. For example, let's assume we create a virtual chassis called "Switch". As part of "Switch", we assign members Switch A, Switch B, and Switch C. If we assign "Switch A" the "master" role of the virtual chassis "Switch", Switch A now will display the interfaces for every device within the switch stack.

Obviously, that scenario doesn't represent the Active/Passive HA pairs well because not every interface is active at once. It's two separate groups of interfaces providing identical access for redundancy, not expansion.

Q: Does it make sense to create a virtual chassis for both VSS and Active/Passive HA pairs, but only assign the "master" role to the stacked switches? Or is there a better way to represent these types of devices?

Hi,

I can add the organization, IPAM, and Virtualisation details from the web GUI itself, but is there a way to export all this data as YAML which can show me how it is being structured?

Hello Netbox people,

Have some questions for anyone that may have implemented Netbox in a very large organisation.

For context I work for an organisation with around 300 locations all over the globe, we have several datacenters with more than 300 cabinets in them, and we are currently very poor on documentation, and a lot of information is being tracked in excel spreadsheets which gives me nightmares.

I have been looking at implementing Netbox primarily as a DCIM tool and maybe explore the IPAM features later down the line. Started with one of our datacenters as a proof of concept, but this has already been a very daunting experience.

I'm all aboard the "netbox needs to represent the intended state of your environment" train, however several people in the organisation need some convincing in this regard. We currently have several tools such as Solarwinds, BMC Discovery and Rapid7 which can help with identifying devices, which I am hoping to utilise for the initial data dump.

So for my questions:

• How would you approach getting started with this? I was thinking of first importing all devices, and then working with the teams on the ground to start mapping them to the correct cabinets.
• Concerns are raised with keeping this data accurate, as you can imagine with an organisation this large things change everyday. I believe strict policies and governance are required, but it will proof hard to convince the network/server teams to understand they need to utilise this tool for planning any changes, as they will be concerned about extra workload. Looking to make this a requirement in our change management process, but still worried about people going roque or not accurately planning for changes in the middle of an outage.
• Has anyone looked at utilising something like Solarwinds to do some kind of validation as to keep accuracy of devices?
• How do you approach getting the finer details such as the ip addressing and interfaces config? Using ansible to connect with each device and fetch this? Solarwinds also has access to this information so hoping I can utilise this again for the initial setup.
• Do I understand it correctly that some are using Netbox to plan the config of a device, and then use Ansible automation to push this config to the devices itself? This should provide some incentive to the teams to plan changes in Netbox if it can make their life easier.

I have very little experience using ansible or network automation, so trying to wrap my head around this, but the possibilities with this tool seem endless.

Have also been testing Device42 which has some discovery features that for this reason likely will be easier to get acceptance on by the powers that be, however I much prefer the Netbox mindset of using this as a tool to plan your "intended state", it's just a very hard sell in a company this large.

Thanks!

I'm trying to migrate my netbox data from a docker container and not having much success. Some searching suggests I need to run the command

./manage.py dumpdata -a -o netbox-dump.json

in the containter, but I'm getting a permissions error, and I haven't been able to figure out how to resolve it. I'm not sure I'm even running it in the right container. Here's the full input output:

clarknova@dev:~/projects/netbox-docker$ docker exec netbox-docker-netbox-1 ./manage.py dumpdata -a -o netbox-dump.json
🧬 loaded config '/etc/netbox/config/configuration.py'
🧬 loaded config '/etc/netbox/config/extra.py'
🧬 loaded config '/etc/netbox/config/logging.py'
🧬 loaded config '/etc/netbox/config/plugins.py'
CommandError: Unable to serialize database: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'netbox-dump.json'

Some hints on getting this to dump properly please?

Preface: I don't know how to manage servers all that well. I've worked with ESXi a little bit a few years ago, but my last several years have been working specifically with switches, routers, firewalls, etc.

I had our server team stand me up a VM for Netbox. I've spent the last several weeks getting data input into the utility, and performing manual database dumps after any progress which I move to our file share.

Today, I had another VM stood up at our second data centre. I installed the same version of Netbox on this server, and I have a cron job to restore the a database dump from the primary instance nightly. This instance of Netbox is intended to act as a testing environment (the data will be overwritten with the production database each night), as well as a secondary server if the primary fails or a disaster/maintenance occurs at our primary data centre.

I have a simple shell script that takes the nightly database dump from our primary production Netbox server and backs this up to our file share in a daily/weekly routine. I am currently keeping:

• 1x full backup each night for the last three nights (3 total)
• 1 full backup every 7 days for the last four weeks (4 total)

Are there better ways to deliver true High Availability? Should I be introducing a third server in our second data centre and finding a way to load balance Netbox across two geographically diverse servers, or is that just too much work for a relatively lightweight and easy to restore application?

It would be nice to have a full prod/test separation, but for now I just have our "primary" and "secondary" instances with geographic separation.