How to install Netbox IPAM

Netbox is a free and powerful IP Address Management (IPAM) and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) tool. It is used to store information about your networks, virtual machines, inventory, and many other devices. It was originally developed by the DigitalOcean engineering team. This tool is written on the Django Python platform and uses a PostgreSQL database.

First you need to install some dependencies:

apt-get install git gcc supervisor python3 python3-dev python3.8-venv python3-pip python3-setuptools build-essential libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libffi-dev graphviz libpq-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev -y 

Install and run redis-server:

apt-get install redis-server -ysystemctl start redis-serversystemctl enable redis-server

Netbox uses PostgreSQL as a database, install it:

apt-get install postgresql -y

Once PostgreSQL is installed, let’s log into PostgreSQL:

su - postgres
psql

Next, create a database and a user in Netbox by entering the following commands:

CREATE DATABASE netbox;
CREATE USER netbox WITH PASSWORD 'Verystrongpassword123#';

Let’s grant all privileges to the Netbox database:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE netbox TO netbox;
\q
exit

First, change the directory to /opt and download the latest version of Netbox from the GitHub repository:

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

Create a symbolic link to the Python binary with the following command:

ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python

Change directory to /opt/netbox/netbox/ and generate a Django secret key and save temporarily:

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

Change the directory to netbox and rename the config file:

cd netbox
mv configuration_example.py configuration.py

Edit the Netbox configuration file and define your database, secret key, and allowed hosts:

nano configuration.py

# PostgreSQL database configuration. See the Django documentation for a complete list of available parameters:
# <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/stable/ref/settings/#databases>
DATABASE = {
'NAME': 'netbox', # Database name
'USER': 'netbox', # PostgreSQL username
'PASSWORD': 'Verystrongpassword123#', # PostgreSQL password
'HOST': 'localhost', # Database server
'PORT': '', # Database port (leave blank for default)
'CONN_MAX_AGE': 300, # Max database connection age 
} 
SECRET_KEY = 'Here enter your secret key that you generated earlier' 

Create a netbox user:

groupadd --system netbox
adduser --system --gid <gid_netbox_from_etc_group> netbox
chown --recursive netbox /opt/netbox/netbox/media/

This <gid_netbox_from_etc_group> is replaced by a number, which can be viewed like this:

cat /etc/group | grep netbox

Activate virtual environment:

/opt/netbox/upgrade.sh

Enter the Python virtual environment.

$ source /opt/netbox/venv/bin/activate

Create a Super User

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

You will be prompted for a username and password as shown below:

Username (leave blank to use ‘root’): netboxadmin

Email address: admin@automationtools.me

Password:

Password (again):

Superuser created successfully.

Reboot the system to apply the changes.

reboot

Copy gunicorn script:

cp /opt/netbox/contrib/gunicorn.py /opt/netbox/gunicorn.py

Configure systemd:

cp -v /opt/netbox/contrib/*.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl daemon-reload

You need to start netbox and add to autorun. Finally, you can use the command systemctl status netbox:

systemctl start netbox netbox-rq
systemctl enable netbox netbox-rq
systemctl status netbox.service

It is recommended to configure Nginx as a reverse proxy to access Netbox on port 80. You can create a new Nginx virtual host configuration.

Install and configuring nginx:

apt-get install nginx -y

cp /opt/netbox/contrib/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/netbox
nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/netbox

Add the following lines:

server {
    listen 80;

    server_name YourIPADDRESS;

    client_max_body_size 25m;

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

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Save and close the file. Then create a symbolic link to the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ directory:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/netbox /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/netbox

Remove default configuration:

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Then check Nginx for syntax errors:

nginx -t

Finally, restart the Nginx service for the changes to take effect:

systemctl restart nginx
systemctl enable nginx

Open your web browser and navigate to the URL http://your-server-ip.

That’s all. Your Netbox IPAM server is ready. Goodbye!)