netbox-ping 2.2.0

A NetBox plugin for pinging and discovering IPs

NetBox Ping

A NetBox plugin for pinging, discovering, and monitoring IP addresses directly from your NetBox instance.

Other plugins: NetBox Map · Website · Demo

Features

• Ping individual IPs — one-click ping from any IP address detail page
• Scan prefixes — ping all existing IPs in a prefix at once
• Discover new hosts — scan entire subnets to find and add active IPs not yet in NetBox
• Bulk operations — select multiple prefixes from the list view and scan/discover in bulk
• Auto-scan scheduling — configure recurring scans and discovery globally or per-prefix
• Per-prefix schedule overrides — three modes: Follow Global, Custom On, or Custom Off
• DNS resolution — automatic reverse DNS lookups with configurable DNS servers
• DNS sync to NetBox — write resolved DNS names back to IPAddress records with change history
• Skip reserved IPs — optionally skip pinging IPs with "reserved" status during scans
• Email digest notifications — periodic summary emails with IP state changes, new discoveries, DNS changes, and high-utilization alerts
• Ping Status columns — sortable status columns injected into the core IP Address and Prefix tables
• Status panels — ping results shown on IP Address and Prefix detail pages
• Background jobs — all scan/discover operations run as NetBox background jobs
• Dark mode compatible

Requirements

• NetBox 4.5.0 or later
• Python 3.12 or later
• ping command available on the NetBox server
• NetBox background worker running (netbox-rq)

Installation

From PyPI

source /opt/netbox/venv/bin/activate
pip install netbox-ping

From source

source /opt/netbox/venv/bin/activate
pip install git+https://github.com/DenDanskeMine/netbox-ping.git

Enable the plugin

Add netbox_ping to your NetBox configuration.py:

PLUGINS = [
    'netbox_ping',
]

Apply migrations

cd /opt/netbox/netbox
python3 manage.py migrate

Restart services

sudo systemctl restart netbox netbox-rq

INFO

If you are upgrading from V1 and getting migration errors, please run the following:

sudo -u postgres psql netbox -c "DELETE FROM django_migrations WHERE app = 'netbox_ping';"
sudo /opt/netbox/venv/bin/python manage.py migrate netbox_ping

Usage

New settings Page

Ping a single IP

Navigate to any IP address in NetBox. Click the Ping Now button to ping it immediately. Results appear in the side panel showing reachability, response time, DNS name, and last seen time.

Scan a prefix

Navigate to a prefix and click the Ping Subnet button to ping all existing IPs in that prefix. Or click Discover IPs to scan the entire subnet range and automatically create new IP addresses for any responding hosts.

Bulk operations

From the prefix list view, select one or more prefixes using the checkboxes, then click Ping Selected or Discover Selected to scan them all.

Custom Status badge

View results

• Plugins > Ping > Ping Results — table of all individual IP ping results
• Plugins > Ping > Scan Results — table of all prefix scan summaries
• Ping Status column — enable the "Ping Status" column in the IP Address or Prefix table column configuration

Auto-scan scheduling

1. Go to Plugins > Ping > Settings
2. Enable Auto-Scan and/or Auto-Discover and choose an interval
3. Set the Minimum Prefix Length to control which prefixes are scanned (default: /24)
4. The system job runs every minute and dispatches scans for prefixes that are due

Per-prefix schedule overrides

From a prefix's Ping Status tab, you can override the global schedule:

Mode	Behavior
Follow Global	Uses whatever the global setting is (default)
Custom On	Always scans at a custom interval, regardless of global setting
Custom Off	Never auto-scans, even if global is enabled

Configuration

DNS settings

Configure up to three DNS servers for reverse lookups in Plugins > Ping > Settings. DNS lookups are performed on reachable IPs to resolve their hostname.

DNS sync to NetBox

Writes resolved DNS names back to the built-in IPAddress.dns_name field. Enable in Plugins > Ping > Settings under the DNS Configuration card.

Setting	Description
Sync DNS to NetBox	Master toggle — write resolved names back to IPAddress records
Clear DNS on Missing	Clear the DNS name field when reverse lookup returns empty
Preserve DNS if Alive	Keep existing DNS name if the host is alive but lookup fails (overrides clear)

All changes are tracked in a DNS History log visible on each IP's Ping Status tab.

Skip reserved IPs

Enable Skip Reserved IPs in settings to exclude IPs with a "reserved" status from being pinged during scans. Skipped IPs are shown with a yellow "Skipped" badge instead of Up/Down.

Email digest notifications

Sends periodic summary emails with IP state changes, new discoveries, DNS changes, and high-utilization prefix alerts. Uses NetBox's existing EMAIL settings from configuration.py — no separate SMTP config needed.

1. Go to Plugins > Ping > Settings
2. Enable Email Notifications and add recipient addresses (comma-separated)
3. Choose a Digest Interval (hourly, every 6/12 hours, daily, or weekly)
4. Configure optional settings:

Setting	Default	Description
Include Details	On	Show per-IP change tables grouped by prefix
Utilization Threshold	90%	Alert on prefixes at or above this utilization (0 = disabled)
Send on Change Only	On	Skip sending if there are no events or high-utilization alerts

Use the Send Test Email button to verify SMTP delivery, or Send Digest Now to send a real digest with current data without waiting for the next scheduled run.

Auto-scan intervals

Available intervals: 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly, every 6 hours, every 12 hours, daily, weekly.

Performance Tuning

Concurrent pings per job

Each scan job pings multiple hosts in parallel. The thread count is configurable in Plugins > Ping > Settings under Concurrent Pings (default: 100).

To go above ~240, you need to raise the file descriptor limit for the netbox-rq service. Add LimitNOFILE=65535 to /etc/systemd/system/netbox-rq.service:

[Service]
LimitNOFILE=65535

Then reload, restart, and increase the setting in the UI:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart netbox-rq

Development

git clone https://github.com/DenDanskeMine/netbox-ping.git
cd netbox-ping
pip install -e .

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 — see the LICENSE file for details.

Support

• Open an issue on GitHub
• Check existing issues for answers