While the networking world slowly moves towards automation being a standard aspect of the profession, skills such as coding and data modelling are increasing. Network automation is evolving in complexity and capability. This piece is a reminder about one ultra simple concept that catches teams out and is rarely discussed: You can't automate what you... Continue Reading →
Windmill.dev for Network Automation Scripting
Over the last half a year I have been experimenting and learning how to use Windmill. It is designed to be a central place that a team can run and develop scripts. It has the ability to be complex and powerful but I just want somewhere that network automation scripts could live and run. It... Continue Reading →
IP Fabric Netbox plugin – Restricting the Scope of Ingestion
This post is a long winded way of telling you how you can select multiple sites to be ingested into Netbox easily so that the amount of data being added to Netbox is small enough to not overload it. The IP Fabric Netbox plugin allows input and comparison of data between the two systems. It... Continue Reading →
IP Fabric Script to Check and Alter Attributues
IP Fabric allows one or more attributes to be assigned to a device. These act like tags in blog posts where certain optional attributes/values can be given to each object. They can be used to filter down devices in all the views of the UI, or via the API. Built in attributes like the site... Continue Reading →
Netbox – Bulk Deletion of an object element
This post describes how to delete an element (field) from every object in Netbox. It uses the example of deleting the weight field from device types. There may be a reason why a netbox admin would need to remove every example of a field from a type of netbox object. For example a custom field... Continue Reading →
IP Fabric Netbox Plugin vs Device Library Import (UPDATED)
The very talented Alex Gittings from IP Fabric has helped me to understand how to get around the capitalisation issue. In the transform maps you can create a jinja2 template that capitalises a field. So if applied in the device - DCIM|manufacturer map, with source field as vendor and target field as name, it will... Continue Reading →
What is a Single Source of Truth?
When we talk about a concept for a long time, its meaning can become unclear or changed. What it truly represents might become less significant. Today, I want to discuss the SSoT, a term that many people think they understand, but I believe has lost some clarity. This term is essential in modern IT automation.... Continue Reading →
Renaming Interfaces in bulk in Netbox
Netbox has a handy feature in the interface section that permits the bulk edit of interface names. This is really handy when you have switch stacks and want the name to represent the full port name so the CLI and netbox agree. In my example I have member 2 of a stack. When created ports... Continue Reading →
Netbox Scripts – Getting Started
An introduction to Netbox's script feature including a basic sample.
Python MAC address manipulation
Every vendor has their favourite format for MAC addresses and it is common to need to create strings to pass as CLI commands. This post shows to check the string is a valid address and how to convert between formats. If you run HPE/Aruba switches the discussion on custom formats will be useful. The python... Continue Reading →
Constantpinger 