Netbox plugin: virtual machine TAGS in XO overwrite to that in netbox

[prashantashrestha]

Are you using XOA or XO from the sources?

• XO from the sources

Describe the bug
When syncing the virtual machine in XO with the netbox, tags from XO overrides the existing tags in the netbox.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Add tags to virtual machine in XO
2. sync with the netbox
3. Add other few tags to virtual machine in netbox which is not in XO
4. sync again XO with the netbox

Expected behavior

• Tags should be appended to the existing list but not to overwrite them.

Screenshots

Environment (please provide the following information):

• XO commit (549d9)

• xo-server 5.124.0

• xo-web 5.126.0

• Node: v16.17.0

[olivierlambert]

Hi,

And how could we guess those tags are added via Netbox? Because I think we don't, meaning that just appending will keep all previously removed tags in XO for example.

[prashantashrestha]

Hi olivier,

How about adding something to the tags added from XO like "xo_dhcp" in this case to the netbox. Will that be possible. I think it would be easier to manage. Just my opinion.

[olivierlambert]

So your tag won't be replicated directly because we will always prefix it. I'm not sure this is what other people might want. Or we need an option in the plugin to prefix them and remove all prefixed tags that are not here anymore. Sounds a bit complicated for this request, but still a possibility I assume.

[olivierlambert]

Okay a good idea from @pdonias : sync only tags with the color used previously by XO.

[pdonias]

Opinion needed about this :)

If a user-created tag "dhcp" already exists in Netbox and someone adds a tag "dhcp" to a VM in XO, what should happen during the next sync?

1. XO can create a new tag with the XO-tag color. It would be a bit ugly because:
   • you'd have 2 tags with the same name and
   • we'd need to deduplicate the tag's slug.
2. XO can attach the user-created tag to the Netbox VM. But then if the tag is removed in XO, what should happen in Netbox?
   • We're not supposed to remove it because it doesn't have the XO-tag color
   • But if we don't remove it, it means that "adding a tag" is a non-revertible action (the tag is added but never removed), which doesn't sound right

[prashantashrestha]

Is it not possible to keep it unchanged if already exists in Netbox? If it's not possible, then it seems 1 shall be better than 2 to manage though being ugly.

[pdonias]

@prashantashrestha What do you mean by "keep it unchanged"?