phonebox-plugin 0.0.10

A phone numbers management plugin for NetBox.

PhoneBox Plugin

A Telephone Number Management Plugin for NetBox and more.

The plugin versions 0.0.1b1-0.0.1b4 support NetBox 2.10.x versions.

Latest plugin version 0.0.1b5 supports NetBox 2.11.0+ versions

I described some general considerations behind the plugin development and future plans in my blog post.

Preview

Supported Features and Models

Numbers

The plugin currently implements a Number abstraction representing a single telephone number of an arbitrary format.
A Number can consist of valid DTMF characters and leading plus sign for E.164 support:

• leading plus ("+") sign (optional)
• digits 0-9
• characters A, B, C, D
• pound sign ("#")
• asterisk sign ("*")

Sample valid numbers: [phone], 1000, 123#2341234567, *100#.
Numbers are stored without delimiters. They will be implemented as an additional formatting function.
Number values can be not unique. Tenant is a mandatory option representing a number partition. Number and Tenant are globally unique.
A Number can optionally be assigned with Provider and Region relations.
A Number can contain an optional Description.
A Number can optionally be tagged with Tags.

The plugin supports Bulk Edit and Delete operations for Numbers.

Voice Circuits

Voice Circuit is an entity on a voice-enabled device representing a physical or virtual connection to another voice-enabled device. The plugin supports the following voice circuit types:

• SIP Trunk.
• Digital Voice Circuit (PRI/BRI/etc).
• Analog Voice Circuit (CO lines/etc).

A Voice Circuit must be assigned to an interface of a Device or Virtual Machine.

Plugin API

The plugin introduces a NetBox REST API extension /api/plugins/phonebox/.
It currently supports all create, read, update, and delete operations for Numbers via /api/plugins/phonebox/numbers/.
The API is compatible with pynetbox:

>>> nb.plugins.phonebox.numbers.get(7)
2000
>>> 

Installation

General installation steps and considerations follow the official guidelines.

Package Installation from PyPi

Assuming you use a Virtual Environment for Netbox:

$ source /opt/netbox/venv/bin/activate
(venv) $ pip3 install phonebox-plugin

Package Installation from Source Code

The source code is available on GitHub.
Download and install the package. Assuming you use a Virtual Environment for Netbox:

$ git clone https://github.com/iDebugAll/phonebox_plugin
$ cd phonebox_plugin
$ source /opt/netbox/venv/bin/activate
(venv) $ pip3 install .

To ensure NextBox UI plugin is automatically re-installed during future upgrades, create a file named local_requirements.txt (if not already existing) in the NetBox root directory (alongside requirements.txt) and list the phonebox_plugin package:

# echo phonebox_plugin >> local_requirements.txt

Enable the Plugin

In a global Netbox configuration.py configuration file, update or add PLUGINS parameter:

PLUGINS = [
    'phonebox_plugin',
]

Collect Static Files

The Plugin contains static files for topology visualization. They should be served directly by the HTTP frontend. In order to collect them from the package to the Netbox static root directory use the following command:

(venv) $ cd /opt/netbox/netbox/
(venv) $ python3 manage.py collectstatic

Apply Database Migrations

Apply database migrations with Django manage.py:

(venv) $ python3 manage.py migrate

Restart Netbox

Restart the WSGI service to apply changes:

sudo systemctl restart netbox

Installation with Docker

The Plugin may be installed in a Netbox Docker deployment. The package contains a Dockerfile for Netbox-Community Docker extension. Latest-LDAP version is used by default as a source.
Download the Plugin and build from source:

$ git clone https://github.com/iDebugAll/phonebox_plugin
$ cd phonebox_plugin
$ docker build -t netbox-custom .

Update a netbox image name in docker-compose.yml in a Netbox Community Docker project root:

services:
  netbox: &netbox
    image: netbox-custom:latest

Update a configuration.py. It is stored in netbox-docker/configuration/ by default. Update or add PLUGINS parameter and PLUGINS_CONFIG parameter as described above.

Rebuild the running docker containers:

$ cd netbox-docker
$ docker-compose down
$ docker-compose up -d

Netbox Community Docker setup performs static files collection on every startup. No manual actions required.