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NetBox Installation

This section of the documentation discusses installing and configuring the NetBox application itself.

Install System Packages

Begin by installing all system packages required by NetBox and its dependencies.

Python 3.7 or later required

NetBox v3.0 and v3.1 require Python 3.7, 3.8, or 3.9. It is recommended to install at least Python v3.8, as this will become the minimum supported Python version in NetBox v3.2.

sudo apt install -y python3 python3-pip python3-venv python3-dev build-essential libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libffi-dev libpq-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev

Warning

CentOS 8 does not provide Python 3.7 or later via its native package manager. You will need to install it via some other means. Here is an example of installing Python 3.7 from source.

Once you have Python 3.7 or later installed, install the remaining system packages:

sudo yum install -y gcc libxml2-devel libxslt-devel libffi-devel libpq-devel openssl-devel redhat-rpm-config

Before continuing, check that your installed Python version is at least 3.7:

python3 -V

Download NetBox

This documentation provides two options for installing NetBox: from a downloadable archive, or from the git repository. Installing from a package (option A below) requires manually fetching and extracting the archive for every future update, whereas installation via git (option B) allows for seamless upgrades by re-pulling the master branch.

Option A: Download a Release Archive

Download the latest stable release from GitHub as a tarball or ZIP archive and extract it to your desired path. In this example, we'll use /opt/netbox as the NetBox root.

sudo wget https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox/archive/vX.Y.Z.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzf vX.Y.Z.tar.gz -C /opt
sudo ln -s /opt/netbox-X.Y.Z/ /opt/netbox

Note

It is recommended to install NetBox in a directory named for its version number. For example, NetBox v3.0.0 would be installed into /opt/netbox-3.0.0, and a symlink from /opt/netbox/ would point to this location. (You can verify this configuration with the command ls -l /opt | grep netbox.) This allows for future releases to be installed in parallel without interrupting the current installation. When changing to the new release, only the symlink needs to be updated.

Option B: Clone the Git Repository

Create the base directory for the NetBox installation. For this guide, we'll use /opt/netbox.

sudo mkdir -p /opt/netbox/
cd /opt/netbox/

If git is not already installed, install it:

sudo apt install -y git

sudo yum install -y git

Next, clone the master branch of the NetBox GitHub repository into the current directory. (This branch always holds the current stable release.)

sudo git clone -b master --depth 1 https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox.git .

Note

The git clone command above utilizes a "shallow clone" to retrieve only the most recent commit. If you need to download the entire history, omit the --depth 1 argument.

The git clone command should generate output similar to the following:

Cloning into '.'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 996, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (996/996), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (935/935), done.
remote: Total 996 (delta 148), reused 386 (delta 34), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (996/996), 4.26 MiB | 9.81 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (148/148), done.

Note

Installation via git also allows you to easily try out different versions of NetBox. To check out a specific NetBox release, use the git checkout command with the desired release tag. For example, git checkout v3.0.8.

Create the NetBox System User

Create a system user account named netbox. We'll configure the WSGI and HTTP services to run under this account. We'll also assign this user ownership of the media directory. This ensures that NetBox will be able to save uploaded files.

sudo adduser --system --group netbox
sudo chown --recursive netbox /opt/netbox/netbox/media/

sudo groupadd --system netbox
sudo adduser --system -g netbox netbox
sudo chown --recursive netbox /opt/netbox/netbox/media/

Configuration

Move into the NetBox configuration directory and make a copy of configuration.example.py named configuration.py. This file will hold all of your local configuration parameters.

cd /opt/netbox/netbox/netbox/
sudo cp configuration.example.py configuration.py

Open configuration.py with your preferred editor to begin configuring NetBox. NetBox offers many configuration parameters, but only the following four are required for new installations:

  • ALLOWED_HOSTS
  • DATABASE
  • REDIS
  • SECRET_KEY

ALLOWED_HOSTS

This is a list of the valid hostnames and IP addresses by which this server can be reached. You must specify at least one name or IP address. (Note that this does not restrict the locations from which NetBox may be accessed: It is merely for HTTP host header validation.)

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['netbox.example.com', '192.0.2.123']

If you are not yet sure what the domain name and/or IP address of the NetBox installation will be, you can set this to a wildcard (asterisk) to allow all host values:

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']

DATABASE

This parameter holds the database configuration details. You must define the username and password used when you configured PostgreSQL. If the service is running on a remote host, update the HOST and PORT parameters accordingly. See the configuration documentation for more detail on individual parameters.

DATABASE = {
    'NAME': 'netbox',               # Database name
    'USER': 'netbox',               # PostgreSQL username
    'PASSWORD': 'J5brHrAXFLQSif0K', # PostgreSQL password
    'HOST': 'localhost',            # Database server
    'PORT': '',                     # Database port (leave blank for default)
    'CONN_MAX_AGE': 300,            # Max database connection age (seconds)
}

REDIS

Redis is a in-memory key-value store used by NetBox for caching and background task queuing. Redis typically requires minimal configuration; the values below should suffice for most installations. See the configuration documentation for more detail on individual parameters.

Note that NetBox requires the specification of two separate Redis databases: tasks and caching. These may both be provided by the same Redis service, however each should have a unique numeric database ID.

REDIS = {
    'tasks': {
        'HOST': 'localhost',      # Redis server
        'PORT': 6379,             # Redis port
        'PASSWORD': '',           # Redis password (optional)
        'DATABASE': 0,            # Database ID
        'SSL': False,             # Use SSL (optional)
    },
    'caching': {
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': 6379,
        'PASSWORD': '',
        'DATABASE': 1,            # Unique ID for second database
        'SSL': False,
    }
}

SECRET_KEY

This parameter must be assigned a randomly-generated key employed as a salt for hashing and related cryptographic functions. (Note, however, that it is never directly used in the encryption of secret data.) This key must be unique to this installation and is recommended to be at least 50 characters long. It should not be shared outside the local system.

A simple Python script named generate_secret_key.py is provided in the parent directory to assist in generating a suitable key:

python3 ../generate_secret_key.py

SECRET_KEY values must match

In the case of a highly available installation with multiple web servers, SECRET_KEY must be identical among all servers in order to maintain a persistent user session state.

When you have finished modifying the configuration, remember to save the file.

Optional Requirements

All Python packages required by NetBox are listed in requirements.txt and will be installed automatically. NetBox also supports some optional packages. If desired, these packages must be listed in local_requirements.txt within the NetBox root directory.

NAPALM

Integration with the NAPALM automation library allows NetBox to fetch live data from devices and return it to a requester via its REST API. The NAPALM_USERNAME and NAPALM_PASSWORD configuration parameters define the credentials to be used when connecting to a device.

sudo sh -c "echo 'napalm' >> /opt/netbox/local_requirements.txt"

Remote File Storage

By default, NetBox will use the local filesystem to store uploaded files. To use a remote filesystem, install the django-storages library and configure your desired storage backend in configuration.py.

sudo sh -c "echo 'django-storages' >> /opt/netbox/local_requirements.txt"

Run the Upgrade Script

Once NetBox has been configured, we're ready to proceed with the actual installation. We'll run the packaged upgrade script (upgrade.sh) to perform the following actions:

  • Create a Python virtual environment
  • Installs all required Python packages
  • Run database schema migrations
  • Builds the documentation locally (for offline use)
  • Aggregate static resource files on disk
sudo /opt/netbox/upgrade.sh

Note that Python 3.7 or later is required for NetBox v3.0 and later releases. If the default Python installation on your server is set to a lesser version, pass the path to the supported installation as an environment variable named PYTHON. (Note that the environment variable must be passed after the sudo command.)

sudo PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3.7 /opt/netbox/upgrade.sh

Note

Upon completion, the upgrade script may warn that no existing virtual environment was detected. As this is a new installation, this warning can be safely ignored.

Create a Super User

NetBox does not come with any predefined user accounts. You'll need to create a super user (administrative account) to be able to log into NetBox. First, enter the Python virtual environment created by the upgrade script:

source /opt/netbox/venv/bin/activate

Once the virtual environment has been activated, you should notice the string (venv) prepended to your console prompt.

Next, we'll create a superuser account using the createsuperuser Django management command (via manage.py). Specifying an email address for the user is not required, but be sure to use a very strong password.

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

Schedule the Housekeeping Task

NetBox includes a housekeeping management command that handles some recurring cleanup tasks, such as clearing out old sessions and expired change records. Although this command may be run manually, it is recommended to configure a scheduled job using the system's cron daemon or a similar utility.

A shell script which invokes this command is included at contrib/netbox-housekeeping.sh. It can be copied to or linked from your system's daily cron task directory, or included within the crontab directly. (If installing NetBox into a nonstandard path, be sure to update the system paths within this script first.)

sudo ln -s /opt/netbox/contrib/netbox-housekeeping.sh /etc/cron.daily/netbox-housekeeping

See the housekeeping documentation for further details.

Test the Application

At this point, we should be able to run NetBox's development server for testing. We can check by starting a development instance:

python3 manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000 --insecure

If successful, you should see output similar to the following:

Watching for file changes with StatReloader
Performing system checks...

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
August 30, 2021 - 18:02:23
Django version 3.2.6, using settings 'netbox.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CONTROL-C.

Next, connect to the name or IP of the server (as defined in ALLOWED_HOSTS) on port 8000; for example, http://127.0.0.1:8000/. You should be greeted with the NetBox home page. Try logging in using the username and password specified when creating a superuser.

Note

By default RHEL based distros will likely block your testing attempts with firewalld. The development server port can be opened with firewall-cmd (add --permanent if you want the rule to survive server restarts):

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8000/tcp

Not for production use

The development server is for development and testing purposes only. It is neither performant nor secure enough for production use. Do not use it in production.

Warning

If the test service does not run, or you cannot reach the NetBox home page, something has gone wrong. Do not proceed with the rest of this guide until the installation has been corrected.

Type Ctrl+c to stop the development server.