NetBox Operator

Disclaimer: This project is currently under development and may change rapidly, including breaking changes. Use with caution in production environments.

NetBox Operator extends the Kubernetes API by allowing users to manage NetBox resources – such as IP addresses and prefixes – directly through Kubernetes. This integration brings Kubernetes-native features like reconciliation, ensuring that network configurations are maintained automatically, thereby improving both efficiency and reliability.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• go version v1.22.0+
• docker version 17.03+
• kubectl version v1.11.3+
• Access to a Kubernetes v1.11.3+ cluster
• kind
• docker cli

Running and developing locally

Running the NetBox Operator and NetBox on a local kind cluster

Note: This requires Docker BuildKit.

• Create kind cluster with a NetBox deployment: make create-kind
• Deploy the NetBox Operator on the local kind cluster: make deploy-kind (In case you're using podman use CONTAINER_TOOL=podman make deploy-kind)

To optionally access the NetBox UI:

• Port-forward NetBox: kubectl port-forward deploy/netbox 8080:8080 -n default
• Open http://localhost:8080 in your favorite browser and log in with the username admin and password admin, you will be able to access the local NetBox instance running in the kind cluster.

Running the NetBox Operator on your machine and NetBox on a local kind cluster

• Create kind cluster with a NetBox deployment: make create-kind

• Port-forward NetBox: kubectl port-forward deploy/netbox 8080:8080 -n default

• Open http://localhost:8080 in your favorite browser and log in with the username admin and password admin, you will be able to access the local NetBox instance running in the kind cluster.

• Open a new terminal window and export the following environment variables:

  export NETBOX_HOST="localhost:8080"
  export AUTH_TOKEN="0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01234567"
  export POD_NAMESPACE="default"
  export HTTPS_ENABLE="false"
  export NETBOX_RESTORATION_HASH_FIELD_NAME="netboxOperatorRestorationHash"

• Run the NetBox Operator locally make install && make run

Running the NetBox Operator on your machine using an existing NetBox and Kubernetes cluster

Note: This requires a running NetBox instance that you can use (e.g. https://demo.netbox.dev) as well as a kubernetes cluster (can be as simple as kind create cluster)

• Prepare NetBox (based on the demo NetBox instance):

  • Open https://demo.netbox.dev/plugins/demo/login/ and create any user
  • Open https://demo.netbox.dev/user/api-tokens/ and create a token "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01234567" with default settings
  • Open https://demo.netbox.dev/extras/custom-fields/add/ and create a custom field called "netboxOperatorRestorationHash" for Object types "IPAM > IP Address" and "IPAM > Prefix"

• Open a new terminal window and export the following environment variables:

  export NETBOX_HOST="demo.netbox.dev"
  export AUTH_TOKEN="0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01234567"
  export POD_NAMESPACE="default"
  export HTTPS_ENABLE="true"
  export NETBOX_RESTORATION_HASH_FIELD_NAME="netboxOperatorRestorationHash"

• Run the NetBox Operator locally make install && make run

Testing NetBox Operator using samples

In the folder config/samples/ you can find example manifests to create IpAddress, IpAddressClaim, Prefix and PrefixClaim resources. Apply them to the cluster with kubectl apply -f <file-name> and use your favorite Kubernetes tools to display.

Example of assigning a Prefix using PrefixClaim:

1. Apply a PrefixClaim: kubectl apply -f config/samples/netbox_v1_prefixclaim.yaml
2. Wait for ready condition: kubectl wait prefix prefixclaim-sample --for=condition=Ready
3. List PrefixClaim and Prefix resources: kubectl get pxc,px
4. In the prefix status fields you’ll be able to see the netbox URL of the resource. Login with the default admin/admin credentials to access the NetBox resources.

Key information can be found in the yaml formatted output of these resources, as well as in the events and Operator logs.

To Deploy on the cluster

Build and push your image to the location specified by IMG

make docker-build docker-push IMG=<some-registry>/netbox-operator:tag

NOTE: This image ought to be published in the personal registry you specified, and it is required to have access to pull the image from the working environment. Make sure you have the proper permission to the registry if the above commands don’t work.

Install the CRDs into the cluster

make install

Deploy the Manager to the cluster with the image specified by IMG

make deploy IMG=<some-registry>/netbox-operator:tag

NOTE: If you encounter RBAC errors, you may need to grant yourself cluster-admin privileges or be logged in as admin.

Create instances of your solution

You can apply the samples (examples) from the config/sample directory:

kubectl apply -k config/samples/

To Uninstall

Delete the instances (CRs) from the cluster

kubectl delete -k config/samples/

Delete the APIs(CRDs) from the cluster

make uninstall

UnDeploy the controller from the cluster

make undeploy

Restoration from NetBox

In the case that the cluster containing the NetBox Custom Resources managed by this NetBox Operator is not backed up (e.g. using Velero), we need to be able to restore some information from NetBox. This includes two mechanisms implemented in this NetBox Operator:

• IpAddressClaim and PrefixClaim have the flag preserveInNetbox in their spec. If set to true, the NetBox Operator will not delete the assigned IP Address/Prefix in NetBox when the Kubernetes Custom Resource is deleted
• In NetBox, a custom field (by default netboxOperatorRestorationHash) is used to identify an IP Address/Prefix based on data from the IpAddressClaim/PrefixClaim resource

Use Cases for this Restoration:

• Disaster Recovery: In case the cluster is lost, IP Addresses can be restored with the IPAddressClaim only
• Sticky IPs: Some services do not handle changes to IPs well. This ensures the IP/Prefix assigned to a Custom Resource is always the same.

Project Distribution

Following are the steps to build the installer and distribute this project to users.

1. Build the installer for the image built and published in the registry:

make build-installer IMG=<some-registry>/netbox-operator:tag

NOTE: The makefile target mentioned above generates an 'install.yaml' file in the dist directory. This file contains all the resources built with Kustomize, which are necessary to install this project without its dependencies.

2. Using the installer

Users can just run kubectl apply -f <URL for YAML BUNDLE> to install the project, i.e.:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<org>/netbox-operator/<tag or branch>/dist/install.yaml

Contributing

We cordially invite collaboration from the community to enhance the quality and functionality of this project. Whether you are addressing bugs, introducing new features, refining documentation, or assisting with items on our to-do list, your contributions are highly valued and greatly appreciated.

NOTE: Run make help for more information on all potential make targets

More information can be found via the Kubebuilder Documentation

License

Copyright 2024 Swisscom (Schweiz) AG.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.