Network Automation with Nautobot: Adopt a network source of truth and a data-driven approach to networking

Cover....1 Title Page....2 Copyright and credits....3 Foreword....5 Contributors....6 Table of Contents....10 Preface....20 Part 1: Introduction to Source of Truth and Nautobot....26 Chapter 1: Introduction to Nautobot....28 Introduction to network automation....28 What is network automation?....29 Network automation use cases....30 Why automate your network?....32 Persona-driven network automation....34 Industry trends....35 Understanding SoT....38 Defining SoT....40 Approaches to SoT....42 SoT tools and products....43 Nautobot overview....44 Nautobot use cases....45 Network SoT....45 Network automation platform....48 Nautobot ecosystem....51 Summary....53 Chapter 2: Nautobot Data Models....54 Nautobot data models overview....55 Data model summary....55 Network device inventory data models....56 Devices....56 Device components....57 Device types....65 Manufacturer....67 Roles and statuses....67 Platform....68 Virtual chassis....68 Device redundancy groups....68 Interface redundancy groups....69 Racks....70 Locations....72 Location type....73 Tenants....74 IPAM data models....74 Namespaces....75 Prefixes....76 IP addresses....77 RIRs....78 VRFs....78 Route targets....79 VLANs and VLAN groups....79 Circuits data models....79 Circuits....80 Circuit terminations....81 Circuit types....82 Circuit providers....82 Provider networks....83 Data model extensibility....83 Custom fields....84 Computed fields....85 Relationships....87 Config contexts....88 Custom data models....89 Summary....89 Part 2: Getting Started with Nautobot....90 Chapter 3: Installing and Deploying Nautobot....92 Nautobot architecture overview....93 Installing Nautobot....94 Getting Nautobot up and ready on Ubuntu....95 Installing dependencies....95 Installing the Nautobot application....99 Launching Nautobot....104 Nautobot worker....109 Nautobot web service....111 Running Nautobot as Linux services....113 Loading data into Nautobot....118 Using the graphical user interface....119 Summary....130 Chapter 4: Understanding the User Interface and Bootstrapping Nautobot....132 Understanding the navigation and UI....133 Navigation menu....133 Nautobot home page and panels....136 Footer navigation....143 Table views....147 Detailed views....152 Managing inventory and bootstrapping your first installation....153 Identifying your data....154 Organizational data....154 Device data....164 Summary....170 Chapter 5: Configuring Nautobot Core Data Models....172 IP address management in Nautobot....172 IP addresses....173 Prefixes....174 Namespaces....174 VRFs....174 VLANs....174 RIRs....174 Configuring IP address management in Nautobot....175 IPAM configuration for Wayne Enterprises....176 Modeling HA and virtual devices....181 Device Redundancy Groups....182 Virtual chassis....183 Key differences between device redundancy and virtual chassis....184 Setting up a firewall redundancy group for Wayne Enterprises in Nautobot....185 Interface Redundancy Groups....188 Cabling and power management....188 Cables....189 Incorporating power management with cabling....191 Power panels....192 Power feeds....192 Understanding the blast radius through comprehensive data....194 Secrets management....195 Why use secrets?....195 Core concepts....195 Secrets versus Secrets Groups in Nautobot....195 Security considerations....199 Accessing secrets in code....199 Nautobot Secrets Providers app (plugin) overview....200 Using Notes, Tags, Changelog, and Filter forms....201 Notes....202 Tags....203 Change log....204 Filter forms....207 Best practices for inventory management....209 Summary....211 Chapter 6: Using Nautobots Extensibility Features....212 Statuses....213 Managing statuses....214 Applying a status....216 Use cases for statuses....217 Best practices for statuses....218 Tags....218 Managing tags....219 Applying a tag....221 Use cases for tags....221 Best practices for tags....223 Custom fields....223 Managing custom fields....225 Diving into custom field attributes....225 Validation rules....228 Custom field choices....228 Applying a custom field....231 Use cases for custom fields....231 Best practices for custom fields....233 Computed fields....233 Managing and applying computed fields....234 Computed field template context....235 Use cases for computed fields....237 Best practices for computed fields....238 Custom links....238 Managing and applying custom links....239 Use cases for custom links....244 Best practices for custom links....244 Export templates....244 Default export templates....244 Use cases for export templates....246 Managing and applying export templates....246 Best practices for export templates....249 Config contexts....249 Exploring the config context hierarchy....251 Managing and applying config contexts....252 Use cases for config contexts....257 Config context schemas....257 Git as a data source....260 Managing and applying Git data sources....260 Use cases for data sources....263 Best practices for data sources....264 Relationships....264 Use cases for relationships....264 Managing and applying relationships....265 Creating a relationship....269 Dynamic groups....272 Use cases for dynamic groups....272 Managing and applying dynamic groups....273 Best practices for dynamic groups....276 Summary....276 Chapter 7: Managing and Administering Nautobot....278 Administration with the Admin UI....278 User, group, and permissions management....281 Groups....282 Users....283 Permissions enforcement....286 Exploring Nautobots settings....298 Understanding setting precedence....298 Setting banner and support messages....299 Adding your companys logos and branding....303 Customizing pagination....310 Preferred primary IP version....311 Handling logs....313 Customizing sanitizer patterns....314 Common settings....315 Advanced settings....315 Setting up and using NAPALM integration....316 Exploring nautobot-server CLI commands....320 Creating a superuser account....320 Exporting and importing data....321 Cleaning up old scheduled jobs....321 Retracing corruptedmissing cable paths....322 Getting help....322 Exploring the Nautobot Shell....322 Working with objects....323 Monitoring Nautobot metrics....324 Upgrading Nautobot....325 Troubleshooting Nautobot....328 Performing a health check....328 Troubleshooting the configuration....329 Debugging Nautobot....329 Summary....332 Part 3: Network Automation with Nautobot....334 Chapter 8: Learning about Nautobot APIs – REST, GraphQL, and Webhooks....336 Technical requirements ....337 Nautobot REST APIs....337 Nautobots interactive API documentation....337 Understanding Nautobot APIs....344 API authentication....349 Using the API with Python....351 API tips....366 pynautobot....371 GraphQL with Nautobot....371 GraphQL primer....371 GraphiQL....372 GraphQL queries with Python....383 GraphQL versus REST....388 Webhooks....389 Exploring webhooks....389 Example – using a Webhook to trigger an Ansible AWX playbook....390 Summary....395 Chapter 9: Understanding Nautobot Integrations for NetDevOps Pipelines....396 Technical requirements ....396 Exploring pynautobot....397 Installing pynautobot....397 Getting started....398 Retrieving objects....399 Updating an object....411 Deleting an object....414 Creating an object....414 Working with Nautobot Apps....415 Using GraphQL with pynautobot....417 Using pynautobot to get the next available IP address....418 Exploring the Nautobot Ansible Collection....421 Installing the collection....423 Reading data with Ansible....424 Ansible write operations....427 Exploring Ansible inventory sources....429 Using Nornir Nautobot....437 Installing Nornir Nautobot....437 Exploring Nautobot Docker containers....440 Exploring the Nautobot Go library....443 Introducing the Nautobot Terraform provider....446 Summary....446 Chapter 10: Embracing Infrastructure as Code with Nautobot, Git, and Ansible....448 Technical requirements ....448 Setting up the environment....449 Network topology....449 Linux host....451 Ansible....451 Nautobot....452 The books Git repo....456 Adding data to Nautobot with Ansible....457 Setting up a dynamic inventory....460 Backing up network devices....462 Performing a config replace with Nautobot, NAPALM, and Ansible on Arista and Juniper devices....463 Performing config changes with Nautobot and Ansible for Cisco IOS devices....465 Performing config changes with Nautobot and Ansible for Cisco NX-OS devices....474 Managing data with config contexts and using Git....475 Nautobot jobs versus Ansible playbooks....476 Summary....477 Chapter 11: Automating Networks with Nautobot Jobs....478 Technical requirements ....478 Nautobot Jobs overview....479 Introduction to the Django ORM....479 Learning about the Nautobot Shell and ORM....481 Reading data....483 Adding and updating data....486 Deleting data....491 Adding Jobs to Nautobot....491 Synchronizing Jobs into Nautobot from a Git repository....492 Distributing Jobs as part of a Nautobot app....492 Mounting or placing Jobs directly in JOBS_ROOT....492 Creating your first Nautobot Job....492 Hello World Nautobot Job....493 Breaking down and building a Nautobot Job....500 Adding dynamic dropdowns to your job....506 Using Jobs to populate data in Nautobot....520 Converting Python scripts into Nautobot Jobs....521 Diving into even more Job features....524 Job buttons....524 Job Hooks....530 Job scheduling....532 Job approvals....534 The Jobs API....535 Job permissions....538 Summary....538 Chapter 12: Data-Driven Network Automation Architecture....540 Data-driven network automation architecture....540 Evolution of managed networks....541 Manually managed networks....542 Power tool automated networks....542 Legacy and domain network management managed networks....542 Infrastructure as Code (IaC) automated networks....543 Nautobot automated networks....545 SoT with Nautobot....547 Integrations and extensibility....547 SoT life cycle....548 Nautobot enablers for SoT....549 Automation and orchestration....561 Understanding workflows....562 Nautobot enablers for automation and orchestration....566 APIs – REST, GraphQL, and Webhooks....566 Modern network monitoring – telemetry and observability....567 Data enrichment....568 Data normalization....569 Data collection....569 Closed loop network automation....570 User interactions....571 Summary....572 Part 4: Nautobot Apps....574 Chapter 13: Learning about the Nautobot App Ecosystem....576 Nautobot Apps overview....576 Why Nautobot Apps?....578 Flexibility....579 Access to SoT data....579 Accelerated development....580 Reduced tool sprawl....580 Nautobot Apps ecosystem....581 Golden Config....581 Nornir....583 Device Onboarding app....583 Device Lifecycle Management (DLM)....583 Data Validation Engine....584 Single Source of Truth (SSoT)....585 Network data models....586 Design Builder app....587 Circuit Maintenance app....588 Secrets Providers app....590 Floor Plan app....591 ChatOps....591 Welcome Wizard app....593 Whats possible with Nautobot Apps?....593 Creating data models....593 Creating APIs....595 Creating UI elements to enhance the user experience....596 Distributing jobs....598 Creating network automation solutions....599 Nautobot Apps administration....600 Installing Nautobot Apps....600 Uninstalling Nautobot Apps....605 Summary....607 Chapter 14: Intro to Nautobot App Development....608 Setting up your system for Nautobot App development....608 Installing Docker....609 Installing Python 3, Pip, Cookiecutter, and Poetry....611 Starting a Nautobot App with Cookiecutter....613 Exploring the App structure....615 Exploring pyproject.toml....618 Post-Cookiecutter tasks and Poetry....622 Introducing Invoke....623 Building the Docker image....624 Defining credentials....624 Running Nautobot....625 Exploring the Nautobot Developer API....630 Configuring a Nautobot App....630 Extending the existing Nautobot UI....633 Extending core functionality....643 Adding entirely new functionality....653 Summary....656 Chapter 15: Building Nautobot Data Models....658 A real-world use case for custom Apps....658 Data model design....659 Gathering representative data and requirements....659 Considering composability, reusability, and deduplication of data....661 Considering built-in Nautobot extensibility features....661 When the data model suggests you should build an App....662 Building an App around existing data models....662 Data model based on extensibility features....664 Adding an ACL overview to the Device detail view....667 Adding ACL details as a Device tab....670 Adding a new DevicesACLs view....674 Implementing the data table....675 Adding ACL details as a REST API endpoint....679 Review....683 Building an App with custom data models....684 Designing the ACL data models....684 Implementing the ACL data models....686 Implementing the REST API....694 Implementing the UI....698 Exercises or next steps....711 Summary....711 Chapter 16: Automating with Nautobot Apps....712 A real-world use case for network automation in a Nautobot app....712 Design requirements....713 Building an App for network automation....713 Rendering IP ACL config using Jinja2....713 Writing a job to push config to a device using Netmiko....717 Preparing the device and related data in Nautobot....722 Running the job....725 Adding a job button to enable one-click configuration....726 Next steps on your journey....730 Summary....731 Appendix 1: Nautobot Architecture....732 Nautobot components and services....732 Database: PostgreSQL or MySQL....734 In-memory data store: Redis....734 In-Memory Data Store High-Availability: Redis Sentinel....736 Job execution: Celery Worker(s)....737 Job queues: Celery task queues....737 Job scheduler: Celery Beat....739 Web server: uWSGI....740 Appendix 2: Integrating Distributed Data Sources of Truth with Nautobot....744 Understanding distributed data sources....744 Challenges of distributed data....746 Benefits of aggregating data....746 Approaches to distributed data management....747 Exploring the Nautobot SSoT framework....748 Getting started with the Nautobot SSoT framework....750 Existing SSoT integrations....760 Building your own SSoT integration....765 Defining the data model mappings....765 Creating a data sync job....766 Using the custom SSoT job....771 Appendix 3: Performing Config Compliance and Remediation with Nautobot....774 Why Golden Config....774 Golden Config design....775 Golden Config use cases....776 Performing Config backups....778 Generating intended configurations....780 Performing config compliance....782 Automating config remediation and deployments....789 Best practices and tips....794 Index....796 Other Books You May Enjoy....813