netbox-cabinet-view 0.7.2

NetBox plugin: DIN rails, subracks, mounting plates, busbars, and multi-row grids with SVG visualization of cabinet interiors, chassis/parent-child devices, and modular PLC chassis. OT/ICS focus.

netbox-cabinet-view

A NetBox plugin that models physical mounting that doesn't fit a 19″ rack — DIN rails, Eurocard subracks, mounting plates, busbars, and multi-row grids — and renders each cabinet as an SVG drawing inside NetBox itself.

Preview

Every image below is a live SVG served by the plugin's own endpoint, rendered against real seeded demo data on a running NetBox instance. Dark mode follows the parent page automatically.

Rack elevation — with cabinet interiors embedded in place

The plugin patches NetBox's core RackElevationSVG so every carrier-hosting shelf renders its own interior inside its U slot on the rack elevation, on both the front and rear faces:

Rack front	Rack rear

The embedded interiors are rendered in thumbnail mode (diminished contrast, no per-placement labels) so they read as "preview — open the Layout tab to interact" rather than pretending each little rectangle is a click target. Full-fidelity rendering is one click away on the device's Layout tab.

Industrial switch with port overlay — status-coloured interface pins

An 8-port managed switch on a DIN rail, with the v0.7.0 port/connector overlay rendering each dcim.Interface as a clickable pin. Green = connected + enabled, grey = unconnected, dark grey = disabled, amber = connected + disabled. Click a pin to jump to the interface detail page.

Modular IED chassis — two-level module-bay overlay

A 2-row × 12-slot protection IED with PSU, CPU, binary I/O, analog I/O, Ethernet, and fibre comms modules. The host device's port_map defines where each module bay sits; each installed module's own port_map defines its pin positions. Protruding spring-cage terminals (DI/DO/AI) extend beyond the module bounds.

Want to see the rest? The full gallery (20+ scenarios covering DIN rails, subracks, mounting plates, busbars, grid mounts, vertical orientations, MCC buckets, VFD cabinets, modular IEDs, ODF frames, safety panels, fieldbus I/O, …) lives in docs/scenarios.md.

Compatibility

NetBox version	Supported	Tested	Notes
4.5.x	✅	✅	Actively developed against 4.5.7 — this is the version all screenshots and smoke tests run against
4.4.x	✅	⚠️	Untested but all APIs used (NetBoxModel, ViewTab, register_model_view, get_model_urls, PluginTemplateExtension.models, HTMXSelect pattern) are present in 4.4.0; no code changes expected
4.3.x and older	❌	❌	Not supported — some helpers we rely on may not exist or have different signatures
4.6.x (when released)	❓	❓	To be verified when released

Python 3.10+ required.

Browser compatibility

Browser	Status	Notes
Chrome / Chromium	✅	Fully supported — dark/light theme toggle updates SVGs live
Firefox	✅	Fully supported
Safari	⚠️	Theme toggle does not reliably update already-loaded SVGs due to aggressive <object> caching. Workaround: refresh the page after toggling. Initial page loads are always correct.

Install

pip install netbox-cabinet-view

Add to your NetBox configuration.py:

PLUGINS = ['netbox_cabinet_view']

Then run migrations and restart NetBox:

python manage.py migrate netbox_cabinet_view
python manage.py collectstatic --no-input

A Cabinet View entry appears in the sidebar, and every dcim.Device detail page whose DeviceType has hosts_mounts=True grows a Layout tab. Unprofiled u_height=0 devices show a soft discovery hint card in the right column pointing users at profile creation.

Using it

1. Create a DeviceMountProfile for any DeviceType that hosts mounts (set hosts_mounts=True and the internal dimensions in mm). Or click the discovery hint card on a cabinet-shaped Device detail page and follow the guided flow.
2. Create a DeviceMountProfile for any DeviceType that mounts on other mounts (set mountable_on, mountable_subtype, and footprint_primary in mount units). Placement size is optional — it auto-fills from the profile's footprint_primary.
3. Optional: create a ModuleMountProfile for any dcim.ModuleType that you want rendered at its real width inside a modular chassis.
4. Create a Device of the host type, place it in a Location or a Rack as normal.
5. Add one or more Mount records to the host device — DIN rail at offset (x, y) with a length, or a mounting plate with width×height, etc.
6. Add Placement records to place devices / device bays / module bays on the mounts at specific positions. The form adapts to the selected mount's type: 1D mounts get just position/size, grid mounts add row/row_span, 2D mounts switch to position_x/y + size_x/y. Target dropdowns are compatibility-filtered to valid unoccupied devices and bays.
7. Visit the host device's detail page → Layout tab.

Faster add-placement shortcut: click any empty slot on the rendered layout. 1D and grid mounts turn every unoccupied slot range into a click target; 2D mounting plates accept click-anywhere coordinates. The placement form opens pre-filled with the mount and position.

Port / connector overlay

Every interface, front port, and rear port on a placed device or module can be rendered as a clickable, status-coloured hotspot directly on the front-panel image:

• Green — connected + enabled
• Amber — connected + disabled
• Grey — unconnected + enabled
• Dark grey — disabled

Define port positions on the profile via a port_map JSON field — either as zones (repetitive terminal blocks with pitch and protrusion) or individual pins at exact coordinates. Protruding spring-cage connectors (DI/DO/AI/AO terminals) extend beyond the device bounding box for realistic rendering. Click any pin to jump to the interface detail page.

For modular devices (IEDs, PLCs), a two-level overlay composites the host device's module-bay positions with each installed module's own pin layout — no manual per-device configuration needed.

Colour mapping is configurable via PORT_STATUS_COLORS in PLUGINS_CONFIG. Health indicators from external monitoring sources are planned for a future release.

Drag-to-place

Grab any placed device on the Layout tab SVG and drag it to a new position. A ghost rectangle follows the cursor, snapping to the mount's grid. On drop, the position updates via the REST API without a page reload. Works on 1D rails (snap to mount units), 2D plates (snap to mm), and grid mounts (snap to row + position).

Bundled line-art

The plugin ships 65 generic front-panel SVGs — de-branded, multi-vendor-inspired — as ready-to-use placeholder images. Upload them to ModuleMountProfile.front_image (modules) or DeviceType.front_image (host devices) so your layouts render with real panel art instead of plain colored rectangles:

IED CPU module	RTU DI module	SFP fibre face	IED chassis

Auto-assign to all demo profiles: python manage.py cabinetview_assign_lineart

Browse the full library: docs/line-art.md — 15 categories covering IED modules (4 manufacturer families), RTU modules (4 variants), PLC/fieldbus I/O, SFP/QSFP transceivers, DIN-rail devices, network switches and routers (DIN-mount + 1U rack-mount), busbar components, cable management, and host chassis.

Demo data

python manage.py cabinetview_seed

Idempotent. Creates one Site, one Rack, ~30 DeviceTypes with profiles, and 20 demo scenarios. The seed also auto-assigns bundled line-art to all matching profiles, so the demo scenarios render with panel images out of the box. See docs/scenarios.md for the full list.

Advanced topics

The sections below live in docs/ to keep this README scannable:

• docs/architecture.md — the four plugin models (DeviceMountProfile, ModuleMountProfile, Mount, Placement), the Mermaid ER schema, the three-way XOR explainer, and the validation rules enforced in Placement.clean().
• docs/scenarios.md — the full 20-scenario demo gallery with tables describing each scenario, plus OT/ICS coverage and ISP-specific notes.
• docs/certification-ratings.md — why environmental / certification metadata (IP, NEMA, Ex, temperature, SIL, fire, seismic, …) lives in NetBox custom fields instead of plugin models, with a recommended baseline of fields to create on dcim.rack and dcim.devicetype.
• docs/offline.md — how the plugin is fully offline-safe at runtime (no CDNs, no external fonts, no runtime HTTP calls) for OT/ICS / air-gapped / classified deployments.
• docs/line-art.md — the bundled library of generic, de-branded front-panel SVGs that ship as ready-to-use placeholder images for modules and host devices.
• docs/roadmap.md — deferred features (Krone LSA, strut channel, Okabe-Ito palette, port health from external sources, auto-scrape port coordinates from devicetype-library, …) and what is explicitly NOT on the roadmap (environmental custom fields, standard 19″ patch cabling).

Security & supply chain

Every release ships with machine-readable supply-chain documents under security/:

• security/sbom.cdx.json — CycloneDX 1.6 Software Bill of Materials with purl identifiers for grype / trivy / osv-scanner / Dependency-Track / GitHub's dependency graph.
• security/openvex.json — OpenVEX 0.2.0 Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange document. No known CVEs affect the plugin or its sole runtime dependency svgwrite.

Reporting a vulnerability: please open a private Security Advisory on GitHub rather than a public issue.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.