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

Key Features

• Learn how documenting your network in Nautobot can accelerate your network automation journey
• Apply NetDevOps to your network by leveraging Nautobot as a network source of truth
• Minimize tool sprawl by extending, using, or building Nautobot Apps
• Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Nautobot enables network teams to build a scalable and extensible network source of truth that provides a foundation to power any network automation stack.

With the help of this guide, you’ll learn how to deploy, manage, and integrate Nautobot as a source of truth and network automation platform. As you progress, you’ll learn what a network source of truth is, the relationship between data and network automation, and network data models. You’ll also gain a broad understanding of Nautobot and its robust features that allow maximum flexibility. A dedicated section will show you how to construct a single source of truth with Nautobot and help you explore its programmatic APIs, including REST APIs, GraphQL, webhooks, and Nautobot Job Hooks. Later, you’ll develop custom data models and custom apps for Nautobot and experience its extensibility and powerful developer API. In the last part of this book, you'll discover how to deploy configuration compliance and automated remediation once Nautobot is deployed as a network source of truth.

By the end of this book, you’ll be able to design and manage Nautobot as a network source of truth, understand its key features, and extend Nautobot by creating custom data models and apps that suit your network and your team.

What you will learn

• Understand network sources of truth and the role they play in network automation architecture
• Gain an understanding of Nautobot as a network source and a network automation platform
• Convert Python scripts to enable self-service Nautobot Jobs
• Understand how YAML files in Git can be easily integrated into Nautobot
• Get to grips with the NetDevOps ecosystem around Nautobot and its app ecosystem
• Delve into popular Nautobot Apps including Single Source of Truth and Golden Config

Who this book is for

This book is for network engineers, network automation engineers, and software engineers looking to support their network teams by building custom Nautobot Apps. A basic understanding of networking (e.g. CCNA) and knowledge of the fundamentals of Linux, Python programming, Jinja2, YAML, and JSON are needed to get the most out of this book.