netbox-history

A NetBox plugin that searches changelog snapshots by field value — including data from objects that have since been deleted.

When a NetBox object is deleted, its data disappears from the primary tables but lives on in core.ObjectChange as serialized JSON in prechange_data / postchange_data. NetBox's built-in changelog UI only filters by object type and primary key — not by arbitrary field values inside the snapshot. This plugin adds a UI search view and a REST API over those snapshots.

It adds no database models and requires no migrations — it is a pure search-and-display layer over core.ObjectChange.

Requirements

• NetBox >= 4.5.0 (tested through the 4.6.x line)
• Python >= 3.12

Installation

pip install -e .

Add the plugin to your NetBox configuration.py:

PLUGINS = ['netbox_history']

Restart NetBox. No migrations are required.

Usage

UI

Navigate to Plugins → History → History Search. Choose an object type and field, enter a value, pick a match mode (Contains / Exact), and optionally a date range. Results show the searched field's before/after values alongside the standard changelog columns.

REST API

Example search request:

{
  "model": "IPAddress",
  "query": {"field": "dns_name", "match_type": "partial", "search_text": "myhost"},
  "max_results": 100,
  "search_history_days": 30
}

Adding searchable models

Edit netbox_history/registry.py and add an entry to SEARCHABLE_FIELDS, keyed by "<app_label>.<model_name>". Include only simple string/choice fields that appear as direct keys in the JSON snapshot (foreign-key fields serialize as integer IDs and are not useful to search).

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later). See the LICENSE file for the full text.