Tag: Datacenter

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NetBox Open Source DCIM and IPAM tool

I wanted to share some information about an open source tool I have found some time ago which helps you to keep track of your infrastructure assets and configuration items. The name is NetBox which is an DCIM (Datacenter infrastructure management) and IPAM (IP address management) tool. NetBox was started by the network engineering team from DigitalOcean, specifically to address the needs of network and infrastructure engineers.

We all know that documentation is something no one wants to do, and no one has time for. What makes NetBox interesting is that not only does it focus on infrastructure documentation with a clean web console, it also comes with a API to push changes via the API , or use NetBox as dynamic inventory for Ansible.

Here a few screenshots showing the look and feel from NetBox:

The rack overview:

The IPAM module:

Here is an example how to add a device via the REST API, very useful if you use ZTP (zero touch provisioning) and add your switches or servers automatically to NetBox or in your automation scripts when you deploy configurations:

vagrant@netbox:~$ curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Token fde02a67ca0c248bf5695bbf5cd56975add33655" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json; indent=4" http://localhost:80/api/dcim/devices/ --data '{ "nae": "server-9", "display_name": "server-9", "device_type": 5, "device_role": 8 , "site": 1 }'
{
    "id": 21,
    "name": "server-9",
    "device_type": 5,
    "device_role": 8,
    "tenant": null,
    "platform": null,
    "serial": "",
    "asset_tag": null,
    "site": 1,
    "rack": null,
    "position": null,
    "face": null,
    "status": 1,
    "primary_ip4": null,
    "primary_ip6": null,
    "cluster": null,
    "virtual_chassis": null,
    "vc_position": null,
    "vc_priority": null,
    "comments": "",
    "created": "2018-04-16",
    "last_updated": "2018-04-16T14:40:47.787862Z"
}
vagrant@netbox:~$

In the web console you see the device I have just added via the REST API:

On the main NetBox Github repository page you find links for a Ansible Role or Vagrant environment.

You can use NetBox as Ansible dynamic inventory and pull out hosts information dynamically when running playbooks. Check out the Github repository I have found.

sudo apt-get install python-setuptools ansible -y
git clone https://github.com/AAbouZaid/netbox-as-ansible-inventory.git
cd ./netbox-as-ansible-inventory/
pip install -r ./requirements.txt
sudo python setup.py install

Usage with Ansible playbook

ansible-playbook -i netbox.py ./site.yml

Please share your feedback and leave a comment.

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VMware NSX Network Design Example

In my previous post about the VMware NSX Edge Routing, I explained how the Edge Service Gateways are connected to the physical network.

Now I want to show an example how the network design could look like if you want to use NSX:

Of course this really depends on your requirements and how complex your network is, I could easily replace the Tenant Edge Service Gateways (ESG) with Distributed Logical Router (DLR) if your tenant network is more complex. The advantage with the ESGs is that I could easily enable Load Balancing as a Service to balance traffic between servers in my tier-3 networks.

The ESGs using Load Balancing as a Services can we as well deploy on-a-stick but for this you need to use SNAT and X-Forwarded-For:

Very interesting it gets when you start using the Distributed Firewall and filter traffic between servers in the same network, micro-segmentation of your virtual machines within the same subnet. In combination with Security Tags this can be a very powerful way of securing your networks.

About what VMware NSX can do, I can only recommend reading the VMware NSX reference design guide, you find lot of useful information how to configure NSX.

Comment below if you have questions.