How To Install NetBox IPAM on Debian 10 Linux

NetBox is an open source IPAM / DCIM web application used for managing and documenting computer networks and managing IP addresses. It was Initially conceived by the network engineering team at DigitalOcean. The tool is written in Django Python framework and relies on PostgreSQL database for data store.

NetBox building blocks:

• IP address management (IPAM) – IP networks and addresses, VRFs, and VLANs
• Equipment racks – Organized by group and site
• Devices – Types of devices and where they are installed
• Connections – Network, console, and power connections among devices
• Virtualization – Virtual machines and clusters
• Data circuits – Long-haul communications circuits and providers
• Secrets – Encrypted storage of sensitive credentials

If you’re interested in deploying Netbox on other systems, checkout:

How to Install NetBox on CentOS 7 with Apache and Supervisord

Here are the steps for installing Install NetBox on Debian 10 (Buster) Linux.

Step 1: Install required dependencies

Start by installing all dependency applications required to run NetBox:

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install -y git gcc nginx redis supervisor python3 python3-dev python3-pip python3-setuptools build-essential libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libffi-dev graphviz libpq-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev

Step 2: Install and configure PostgreSQL

NetBox uses PostgreSQL database server to store its data. So install PostgreSQL server on Debian 10:

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install postgresql-contrib postgresql-11-ip4r

The Create a database and user for NetBox.

$ sudo -u postgres psql

CREATE DATABASE netbox;
CREATE USER netbox WITH PASSWORD 'StrongPassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE netbox TO netbox;
\q

Confirm that you can login to database as netbox user.

$ psql -U netbox -h localhost -W
Password: 
psql (11.5 (Debian 11.5-1+deb10u1))
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
Type "help" for help.
netbox=> \q

Step 3: Install and configure Netbox

Change to /opt/ directory and clone project code.

cd /opt/
sudo git clone -b master https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox.git

Create a configuration file from provided example file.

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

Edit the configuration file and set allowed host and database login details:

$ sudo vim configuration.py
....
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['localhost']
....
DATABASE = {
     'NAME': 'netbox',             # Database name
     'USER': 'netbox',             # PostgreSQL username
     'PASSWORD': 'StrongPassword', # PostgreSQL password
     'HOST': 'localhost',          # Database server
     'PORT': '',                   # Database port (leave blank for default)
     'CONN_MAX_AGE': 300,          # Max database connection age
 }

Generate Django SECRET Key:

cd /opt/netbox/netbox
sudo ./generate_secret_key.py

Then set the key on the file /opt/netbox/netbox/netbox/configuration.py

Example:

$ sudo vim /opt/netbox/netbox/netbox/configuration.py
SECRET_KEY = 'L2lyoE^*DN)[email protected]!cvF1V=n0juWiATR'

Install Netbox dependencies:

sudo pip3 install -r /opt/netbox/requirements.txt

Migrate database data:

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

Sample output for database migration.

Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: admin, auth, circuits, contenttypes, dcim, extras, ipam, secrets, sessions, taggit, tenancy, users, virtualization
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0002_logentry_remove_auto_add... OK
  Applying admin.0003_logentry_add_action_flag_choices... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying auth.0002_alter_permission_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0003_alter_user_email_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0004_alter_user_username_opts... OK
  Applying auth.0005_alter_user_last_login_null... OK
  Applying auth.0006_require_contenttypes_0002... OK
  Applying auth.0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages... OK
  Applying auth.0008_alter_user_username_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0009_alter_user_last_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0010_alter_group_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0011_update_proxy_permissions... OK
  Applying taggit.0001_initial... OK
  Applying taggit.0002_auto_20150616_2121... OK
  Applying tenancy.0001_initial_squashed_0005_change_logging... OK
  Applying dcim.0001_initial... OK
  Applying ipam.0001_initial... OK
  Applying dcim.0002_auto_20160622_1821... OK
  Applying extras.0001_initial_squashed_0013_objectchange... OK
  Applying ipam.0002_vrf_add_enforce_unique... OK
  Applying dcim.0003_auto_20160628_1721_squashed_0010_devicebay_installed_device_set_null... OK
  Applying ipam.0003_ipam_add_vlangroups_squashed_0011_rir_add_is_private... OK
  Applying dcim.0011_devicetype_part_number_squashed_0022_color_names_to_rgb... OK
  Applying ipam.0012_services_squashed_0018_remove_service_uniqueness_constraint... OK
  Applying dcim.0023_devicetype_comments_squashed_0043_device_component_name_lengths... OK
  Applying virtualization.0001_virtualization... OK
  Applying ipam.0019_virtualization_squashed_0020_ipaddress_add_role_carp... OK
  Applying dcim.0044_virtualization_squashed_0061_platform_napalm_args... OK
  Applying extras.0014_configcontexts_squashed_0019_tag_taggeditem... OK
  Applying dcim.0062_interface_mtu_squashed_0065_front_rear_ports... OK
  Applying circuits.0001_initial_squashed_0006_terminations... OK
  Applying dcim.0066_cables...
    Adding console connections... 0 cables created
    Adding power connections... 0 cables created
    Adding interface connections... 0 cables created
 OK
  Applying circuits.0007_circuit_add_description_squashed_0017_circuittype_description...
    Adding circuit terminations... 0 cables created
 OK
  Applying tenancy.0006_custom_tag_models... OK
  Applying virtualization.0002_virtualmachine_add_status_squashed_0009_custom_tag_models... OK
  Applying secrets.0001_initial_squashed_0006_custom_tag_models... OK
  Applying ipam.0021_vrf_ordering_squashed_0025_custom_tag_models... OK
  Applying dcim.0067_device_type_remove_qualifiers_squashed_0070_custom_tag_models... OK
  Applying extras.0020_tag_data_squashed_0021_add_color_comments_changelog_to_tag... OK
  Applying dcim.0071_device_components_add_description_squashed_0088_powerfeed_available_power...
Updating cable device terminations...
 OK
  Applying dcim.0089_deterministic_ordering... OK
  Applying dcim.0090_cable_termination_models... OK
  Applying extras.0022_custom_links_squashed_0034_configcontext_tags... OK
  Applying extras.0035_deterministic_ordering... OK
  Applying extras.0036_contenttype_filters_to_q_objects... OK
  Applying ipam.0026_prefix_ordering_vrf_nulls_first_squashed_0032_role_description... OK
  Applying ipam.0033_deterministic_ordering... OK
  Applying secrets.0007_secretrole_description... OK
  Applying sessions.0001_initial... OK
  Applying taggit.0003_taggeditem_add_unique_index... OK
  Applying users.0001_api_tokens_squashed_0003_token_permissions... OK
  Applying virtualization.0010_cluster_add_tenant_squashed_0012_vm_name_nonunique... OK
  Applying virtualization.0013_deterministic_ordering... OK

Create admin user:

$ sudo python3 manage.py createsuperuser

Username (leave blank to use 'root'): admin
Email address: [email protected]
Password: <Enter Password>
Password (again): <Re-enter Password>
Superuser created successfully.

Move static files

$ cd /opt/netbox/netbox
$ sudo python3 manage.py collectstatic
280 static files copied to '/opt/netbox/netbox/static'.

Step 3: Install and configure gunicorn

Install gunicorn using pip3:

$ sudo pip3 install gunicorn
Collecting gunicorn
   Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/69/ca/926f7cd3a2014b16870086b2d0fdc84a9e49473c68a8dff8b57f7c156f43/gunicorn-20.0.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl (77kB)
     100% |████████████████████████████████| 81kB 1.7MB/s 
 Requirement already satisfied: setuptools>=3.0 in /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (from gunicorn) (40.8.0)
 Installing collected packages: gunicorn
 Successfully installed gunicorn-20.0.4

Configure gunicorn for Netbox:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py
command = '/usr/local/bin/gunicorn'
pythonpath = '/opt/netbox/netbox'
bind = 'localhost:8085'
workers = 3
user = 'www-data'
EOF

Step 4: Configure supervisord

Create a supervisord configuration file:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/supervisor/conf.d/netbox.conf
[program:netbox]
command = gunicorn -c /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py netbox.wsgi
directory = /opt/netbox/netbox/
user = www-data
EOF

Restart and enable supervisord service to start on boot.

sudo systemctl restart supervisor.service
sudo systemctl enable supervisor.service

Status should show running with netbox output:

$  systemctl status  supervisor
● supervisor.service - Supervisor process control system for UNIX
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/supervisor.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sat 2020-01-18 21:01:30 UTC; 7s ago
     Docs: http://supervisord.org
 Main PID: 5797 (supervisord)
    Tasks: 5 (limit: 2377)
   Memory: 188.4M
   CGroup: /system.slice/supervisor.service
           ├─5797 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/supervisord -n -c /etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf
           ├─5878 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/gunicorn -c /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py netbox.wsgi
           ├─5882 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/gunicorn -c /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py netbox.wsgi
           ├─5883 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/gunicorn -c /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py netbox.wsgi
           └─5884 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/gunicorn -c /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py netbox.wsgi

Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 systemd[1]: supervisor.service: Succeeded.
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 systemd[1]: Stopped Supervisor process control system for UNIX.
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 systemd[1]: Started Supervisor process control system for UNIX.
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:30,965 CRIT Supervisor is running as root.  Privileges were not dropped because no user is spe
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:30,965 INFO Included extra file "/etc/supervisor/conf.d/netbox.conf" during parsing
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:30,969 INFO RPC interface 'supervisor' initialized
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:30,970 CRIT Server 'unix_http_server' running without any HTTP authentication checking
Jan 18 21:01:30 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:30,970 INFO supervisord started with pid 5797
Jan 18 21:01:31 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:31,972 INFO spawned: 'netbox' with pid 5878
Jan 18 21:01:33 deb10 supervisord[5797]: 2020-01-18 21:01:33,235 INFO success: netbox entered RUNNING state, process has stayed up for > than 1 seconds 

Step 5: Configure Nginx Web Server

Let’s configure Nginx web server to help us access Netbox via Domain name rather than specifying an IP address and a port.

Create new Nginx configuration file for Netbox.

sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/netbox.conf

With below data.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name netbox.example.com;
    client_max_body_size 25m;

    location /static/ {
        alias /opt/netbox/netbox/static/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8085;
    }
}

Check Nginx configuration syntax and restart its service

$ sudo  nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

If OK, restart Nginx service

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 6: Access Netbox Web UI

Open your default web browser and open Netbox server hostname. To make changes, login with admin user created earlier.

There you go!.. You have NetBox dashboard.

Enjoy using Netbox to document your network infrastructure. Access NetBox documentation to learn more about this awesome product.

You can also check:

Install and Configure phpIPAM on Debian

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