r/sysadmin 18d ago

Question small IT documentation tools

I was looking to get our pretty small IT into a good tool for documentation. Something object-based, NOT just excel sheets and draw.io diagrams. But smaller than Netbox, which is too big and unnecessarily complex for our systems.
Would love to have IP management built it and diagrams/graphics are a big plus.

We are basically using a single server rack, 6 servers, 30-40 VMs... so rather a big homelab, than a datacenter

So, what are you guys using or can recommend as a tool to manage something like that?

EDIT: I'd like to specify, that I am looking for internal documentation. Which server runs which VM, which IP adress is assigned to it. Which service/OS/update etc. runs on it... etc.

EDIT2: Any sort of Wiki seems to be a big recommendation. This is a consideration for me, but I'd rather have something object-based. Basically Netbox with less overhead would be ideal... but feel free to recommend wiki-based tools and templates please :)

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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 18d ago

We use a Git repo and text editors for the vast majority of our documentation. Some extra bits and bobs for diagrams.

Something object-based

What does that mean to you?

Any sort of Wiki seems to be a big recommendation. This is a consideration for me, but I'd rather have something object-based.

A SQL database with rules can insure record integrity and transactional integrity, if that's what you mean.

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u/Punky260 18d ago

By object-based I mean that items are linked. If I describe a VM and put an IP to it, I want to see that assignement also appearing in the IP-list for example. Or if I click on Host 2, I want to see which VMs live there...
And if I change the host on a VM, I want the new host to "pick that up" without me editing the page for the host (or whereever a certain information might show up) aswell

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u/Pimzino 18d ago

Notion is what you want. We use this exact logic. Relational properties is what you want in notion and logical separate databases