Implementation of "DeploymentTemplate"

[bdlamprecht]

Issue type:

Feature Request

Python version:
2.7.12
NetBox version:
2.0.10

There was a discussion today on the NetworkToCode Slack channel about the current limitations of interface_templates. The discussion began based off of the fact that in the current version of NetBox, you can create a parent LAG interface but not associate them with "built-in" physical interfaces.

@jeremystretch mentioned that his long-term goal was to (speaking about a Juniper EX4300) "have a library of devices defined in JSON with all their standard components so that you could just browse to juniper/switches/ex4300-48t.json in a repo and import the file and everyone could use that, because again, there's only one EX4300-48T."

I suggested a type of "template hierarchy" such that you could define "a standard EX4300 device_type to be created across the board, but then also allow some type of inheritance based of of what device_role is was initially created as."

The discussion continued with Jeremy coming up with the idea of something called a DeploymentTemplate which is "bound to a set of device_types and a set of device_roles and when you create a device matching both, arbitrary other things happen (like adding an ae0)."

This "issue" is just to have a record of that discussion and provide a forum to facilitate further comments on how it should be implemented along with any problems that may arise.

[SchwarzM]

Hi,
as per MailingList I would like to add to this:

My device type has a strong correlation to the inventory of the device.
So instead of adding it to each and every instance of the device type,

I would like a central place where I can specify that each device of type x has 2 CPU's of type y.

Kind regards
Marian Schwarz

[bdlamprecht]

I know @jeremystretch is busy with getting v2.4 out of beta and ready for production, but any chance of this request making it into the v2.5 release?

[FragmentedPacket]

I would like to see this feature as well. I'd be willing to test this when it hits beta in whichever version is selected to release this feature.

[ngrundler]

+1 here as well, I'm working on parsing my device configurations and loading them into Netbox, having this feature would be very welcome.

[bdlamprecht]

Based off comments from @jeremystretch concerning what he is intending to target for v2.5, we might be lucky to see it in v2.6.

So unfortunately for us all, this feature is still quite a ways off.

[simora]

+1

my support inspired by creating 600 devices and post-creation adding platform and LAG's (via the api ofcourse so its like complaining about cold ice cream).

deployment templates would allow operators to create devices and other objects in netbox with greater ease and with approved parameters pre-defined rather than hoping they can cobble everything together on their own.

[bdlamprecht]

Simply adding this from the NetworkToCode Slack for history purposes (referring to #1364):

I can see that according to GitHub, release v2.6 is slowly coming along.
Thanks for everyone who has contributed in making that happen as well as squashing the bugs that have popped up in the v2.5.x series.

I'm aware you can't give an exact timeframe for when FRs will be implemented, I'm merely asking if this is on the radar at all for v2.7

[jeremystretch]

Looking back at this, it should be completely addressed by the addition of custom scripts. If anyone would like to re-propose it, please do so in a new feature request with a detailed use case relevant to NetBox v2.11 or later.