NetBox Build-o-Matic

I frequently desire a fresh NetBox environment for testing new things or setting up various demos. There are likely better, more modern programmatic, methods for achieving this same thing. However, I was searching for a lowest common denominator that I could run in a freshly installed OS.

My largest hurdle in rapidly acheiving this this was the NetBox build itself, not the OS. Previously I had created a video that walks through these steps for a manual deployment (viewable here) and would frequently reference that video on new builds. This encapsulates all of that into a few easy steps. Caveat here, in order to be a good NetBox administrator I firmly believe it is important to understand the required steps... but I also wanted an easy button to deploy a new instance.

This is a basic series of linked bash scripts that will build and configure a new NetBox instance, on the newest version, per the official documentation. Designed for and tested on a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS.

ymmv

Quick Notes

• The PostgreSQL password is statically coded as verygoodpassword and should be manually changed to meet your needs.
• The PRIVATE_KEY variable, which is required in configuration.py is randomly generated using the provided generate_secret_key.py script. It is also automatically inserted into the correct location.
• The process will automatically create a NetBox superuser named admin with a password of adminpass.
• The SSL cert is generated based on input in the netbox-cert.conf file. Make changes here if required.

Executing the Script

After cloning the repo into the location of your choice, your home directory should be fine, run the following:

• sudo -i
• cd (cloned directory)/netbox-build-o-matic
• chmod u+x install.sh
• ./install.sh

After launching the ./install.sh script you'll be watching the full install process, step-by-step, until completed. Once the install process has returned you to the bash prompt your NetBox environment will be up and running on TCP/443. It can be accessed by browser at https://<machine IP address>

Build times are quite reasonable:

# time ./install.sh

-- output omitted --

real    3m42.137s
user    0m3.064s
sys     0m0.796s

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why didn't you use X, Y, or Z to accomplish this?
  • Because I didn't want to.
• Don't you think it would be better if you did X instead of Y?
  • Probably.
• If I released code this bad, I would be embarassed.
  • That's not a question.