Skip to content

NAPALM

NetBox supports integration with the NAPALM automation library. NAPALM allows NetBox to serve a proxy for operational data, fetching live data from network devices and returning it to a requester via its REST API. Note that NetBox does not store any NAPALM data locally.

The NetBox UI will display tabs for status, LLDP neighbors, and configuration under the device view if the following conditions are met:

  • Device status is "Active"
  • A primary IP has been assigned to the device
  • A platform with a NAPALM driver has been assigned
  • The authenticated user has the dcim.napalm_read_device permission

Note

To enable this integration, the NAPALM library must be installed. See installation steps for more information.

Below is an example REST API request and response:

GET /api/dcim/devices/1/napalm/?method=get_environment

{
    "get_environment": {
        ...
    }
}

Note

To make NAPALM requests via the NetBox REST API, a NetBox user must have assigned a permission granting the napalm_read action for the device object type.

Authentication

By default, the NAPALM_USERNAME and NAPALM_PASSWORD configuration parameters are used for NAPALM authentication. They can be overridden for an individual API call by specifying the X-NAPALM-Username and X-NAPALM-Password headers.

$ curl "http://localhost/api/dcim/devices/1/napalm/?method=get_environment" \
-H "Authorization: Token $TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Accept: application/json; indent=4" \
-H "X-NAPALM-Username: foo" \
-H "X-NAPALM-Password: bar"

Method Support

The list of supported NAPALM methods depends on the NAPALM driver configured for the platform of a device. Because there is no granular mechanism in place for limiting potentially disruptive requests, NetBox supports only read-only get methods.

Multiple Methods

It is possible to request the output of multiple NAPALM methods in a single API request by passing multiple method parameters. For example:

GET /api/dcim/devices/1/napalm/?method=get_ntp_servers&method=get_ntp_peers

{
    "get_ntp_servers": {
        ...
    },
    "get_ntp_peers": {
        ...
    }
}

Optional Arguments

The behavior of NAPALM drivers can be adjusted according to the optional arguments. NetBox exposes those arguments using headers prefixed with X-NAPALM-. For example, the SSH port is changed to 2222 in this API call:

$ curl "http://localhost/api/dcim/devices/1/napalm/?method=get_environment" \
-H "Authorization: Token $TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Accept: application/json; indent=4" \
-H "X-NAPALM-port: 2222"