netbox-ptov 0.1.28

NetBox plugin for ptov. Uses dcnodatg project.

NetBox PtoV Plugin

Netbox plugin for pulling runstate (config and topology) from Arista switches and replicating them in a GNS3 virtual lab using Arista cEOS containers

• Free software: Apache-2.0
• Documentation: https://menckend.github.io/netbox-ptov-plugin/

Features

• Creates a new model/table for storing the DNS names of your GNS3 servers. ("Boring, Sidney; borrring, borrrrrrring", I know.)

• Provides a screen/page that prompts you to:

  • Select a GNS3 server and as few or as many Arista switches as you want from your devices table.
  • Enter a set of Arista EOS credentials
  • Enter a project-name to use for a new project on the GNS3 server

• Programmatically instantiates a GNS3 virtual-lab, populated with Arista cEOS container/nodes, each of which is:

  • MLAG friendly (each container is configured to use the system-mac address of the "real" switch it is emulating)
  • Running a (cEOS/lab conformed) copy of the startup-config of the switch it is emulating
  • Running the same cEOS version as the switch that it is emulating (if you have a matching Docker template installed on your GNS3 server)
  • Happy to run as an EVPN/VXLAN fabric, if that's your bag. (There's some per-VRF/network-namespace ipfilters tweaking that may still need to be cleared up.)
  • Has "links" provisioned in the vlab, mirroring the inter-switch links of the "live" switches you're modeling (detected when inspecting th LLDP tables of the switches)

• Returns a URL

• ...at which you can access the virtual-lab you just created.

Contemplated Use-cases

Change modeling, obviously. Invasive troubleshooting of pesky routing issues that you wouldn't want to spend six hours setting up a vlab for, but that would be well-worth the effort if it only took two minutes to set up. (The 14-switch topology shown in the images above took just under 60 seconds instantiate.)

Under the hood

• All of the heavy lifting is done by the dcnodatg package

Compatibility

NetBox Version	Plugin Version
4.1	0.1.0

Installing

For adding to a NetBox Docker setup see the general instructions for using netbox-docker with plugins.

While this is still in development and not yet on pypi you can install with pip:

pip install git+https://github.com/menckend/netbox_ptov

or by adding to your local_requirements.txt or plugin_requirements.txt (netbox-docker):

git+https://github.com/menckend/netbox_ptov

Enable the plugin in /opt/netbox/netbox/netbox/configuration.py, or if you use netbox-docker, your /configuration/plugins.py file :

PLUGINS = [
    'netbox_ptov'
]

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "netbox_ptov": {},
}

Credits

Based on the NetBox plugin tutorial:

• demo repository
• tutorial

This package was created with Cookiecutter and the netbox-community/cookiecutter-netbox-plugin project template.