Netbox on Aaron's Worthless Words

Generating Network Diagrams from Netbox with Pynetbox

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s my typical disclaimer: I’m not a developer. I have the ability to make code give me an expected output, but I do not do anything “the right way.”

All the code I write for these blog posts is in my Github repo that you can and should freely copy and modify. Here’s the environment I’m running this stuff in. Python. Pynetbox. You know the drill by now.

Python         :  3.9.10
Pynetbox       :  7.0.0
Netbox version :  3.5.8

We’ve been working through some stuff, and, at this point, we have a lot of stuff in our Netbox instance. Let’s step up the game a little, though, and see if we can’t generate a network diagram based on that data. Let’s set some expectations, though. This is not going to be comparable to that Visio diagram you’ve managed by hand for the last 8 years. This is going to be a very simple diagram with subnet, nodes, and IP addresses – enough for an auditor or for some architect who doesn’t know what’s in their own data centers.

Netbox Upgrade Play-by-play

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I just upgraded my Netbox server from v2.7.6 to v3.4.8. This is just a record of what I did in case anyone want to know how I did it.

Environment

The source v2.7.6 server is an Ubuntu 18.04 VM. Yes, both are very old.
The destination v3.4.8 server is an Ubuntu 20.04 VM.
We have no media, scripts, or reports in Netbox.
I’m running Virtualbox on my laptop to do the data migrations.

Sending Slack Messages with Python

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a quick summary of what we’ve talked about in the last few posts – all with Python.

We’ve asked Netbox to provide some info using pynetbox.
We’ve added stuff to Netbox using pynetbox.
We’ve updated and deleted stuff in Netbox using pynetbox.
We’ve logged our messages with Python logging.

This is all fine and dandy, but I would guess that you’re not the only engineer in the company and production maintenance scripts don’t run off of your laptop. We need a way to let a group of people know what’s happening when one of your scripts is run. And please don’t say email. Email has been worthless for alerting for over a decade, and there are better ways to do it. Search your feelings…you know it to be true!

Deleting Stuff from Netbox with Pynetbox

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As a warning to everyone, I am not a developer. I am a network engineer who is trying to do some automation stuff. Some of what I’m doing sounds logical to me, but I would not trust my own opinions for production work. I’m sure you can find a Slack channel or Mastodon instance with people who can tell you how to do things properly.

We’ve added stuff and updated stuff, so let’s delete some stuff. “Hey, man…you already did that,” you say? You’re right! When we started creating API tokens based on user/pass, we made sure to delete the token at the end. That means we should all be professional pynetbox deleters, then, right? :)

Updating Stuff on Netbox with Pynetbox

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s see. We’ve queried stuff on Netbox and added stuff to Netbox. Now let’s update stuff.

Netbox, like all sources of truth, needs to be kept up-to-date if it’s going to be useful. Without doing some maintenance on the data, it will wind up being like that one Visio diagram that you give the auditors – it might have been accurate at one point but gets further and further from the truth every day. We’ll need to keep our stuff updated today in order to use it more effectively tomorrow.

Adding Stuff to Netbox with Pynetbox

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I think there’s a theme in the last few posts. I can’t quite put my finger on it, though. :) We’ve talked about querying Netbox, but it’s pretty useless without data actually in it. Let’s look at how to get stuff in there using pynetbox.

Query Filtering with Pynetbox

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A bit ago, we talked about getting information out of Netbox with Pynetbox. The example was very simple, but I’m afraid the real world dictates that querying every device every time is not very efficient or manageable. At some point, we’ll need to ask for a subset of everything, so let’s look at filtering.

Using Pynetbox to Create Netbox API Tokens

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The last time, I talked about using pynetbox to make queries to Netbox. This was a very simple example, and one of the things that bugged me the most about it was the API token. In that post, we used a statically-assigned API token where I went into the Netbox GUI and generated one for myself. I think I may have even noted that this was definitely not the best way to handle those things. A possibly-better way to do it is to use your username and password on Netbox to generate a token for yourself. This would a token that you then delete when you’re done.

Adventures in Upgrading Netbox

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using Netbox for a while now, and, frankly, I can’t live without it. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a Source of Truth for your network automation tasks started by Jeremy Stretch. I use it to document my networks (hardware inventory, subnets, physical connections, etc.), which provides my automation tasks a place to pull and push all sorts of information like management IPs, rack locations, power connections, network drops…the list goes on. In better words, your automation tools can ask Netbox what the state of your network is, and send it an update if that tool discovers something different. There are plenty of better places to discuss the benefits of a Souce of Truth, so just do the Googles for it.