netbox v2.6.3 releases: IP address management and data center infrastructure management tool

NetBox is an open-source web application designed to help manage and document computer networks. Initially conceived by the network engineering team at DigitalOcean, NetBox was developed specifically to address the needs of network and infrastructure engineers. It encompasses the following aspects of network management:

• IP address management (IPAM) – IP networks and addresses, VRFs, and VLANs
• Equipment racks – Organized by group and site
• Devices – Types of devices and where they are installed
• Connections – Network, console, and power connections among devices
• Virtualization – Virtual machines and clusters
• Data circuits – Long-haul communications circuits and providers
• Secrets – Encrypted storage of sensitive credentials

While NetBox strives to cover many areas of network management, the scope of its feature set is necessarily limited. This ensures that development focuses on core functionality and that scope creep is reasonably contained. To that end, it might help to provide some examples of functionality that NetBox does not provide:

• Network monitoring
• DNS server
• RADIUS server
• Configuration management
• Facilities management

That said, NetBox can be used to great effect in populating external tools with the data they need to perform these functions.

NetBox was designed with the following tenets foremost in mind.

Replicate the Real World

Careful consideration has been given to the data model to ensure that it can accurately reflect a real-world network. For instance, IP addresses are assigned not to devices, but to specific interfaces attached to a device, and an interface may have multiple IP addresses assigned to it.

Serve as a “Source of Truth”

NetBox intends to represent the desired state of a network versus its operational state. As such, automated import of live network state is strongly discouraged. All data created in NetBox should first be vetted by a human to ensure its integrity. NetBox can then be used to populate monitoring and provisioning systems with a high degree of confidence.

Keep it Simple

When given a choice between a relatively simple 80% solution and a much more complex complete solution, the former will typically be favored. This ensures a lean codebase with a low learning curve.

Application Stack

NetBox is built on the Django Python framework and utilizes a PostgreSQL database. It runs as a WSGI service behind your choice of HTTP server.

Changelog v2.6.3

New Features

Custom Scripts (#3415)

Custom scripts allow for the execution of arbitrary code via the NetBox UI. They can be used to automatically create, manipulate, or clean up objects or perform other tasks within NetBox. Scripts are defined as Python files which contain one or more subclasses of extras.scripts.Script. Variable fields can be defined within scripts, which render as form fields within the web UI to prompt the user for input data. Scripts are executed and information is logged via the web UI. Please see the docs for more detail.

Note: There are currently no API endpoints for this feature. These are planned for the upcoming v2.7 release.

Bug Fixes

• #3392 – Add database index for ObjectChange time
• #3420 – Serial number filter for racks, devices, and inventory items is now case-insensitive
• #3428 – Fixed cache invalidation issues (#3300, #3363, #3379, #3382) by switching to prefetch_related() instead of select_related() and removing use of update()
• #3421 – Fix exception when ordering power connections list by PDU
• #3424 – Fix tag coloring for non-linked tags
• #3426 – Improve API error handling for ChoiceFields

Enhancements

• #3386 – Add mac_address filter for virtual machines
• #3391 – Update Bootstrap CSS to v3.4.1
• #3405 – Fix population of power port/outlet details on device creation
• #3422 – Prevent navigation menu from overlapping page content
• #3430 – Linkify platform field on device view
• #3454 – Enable filtering circuits by region
• #3456 – Enable bulk editing of tag color

Install && Use