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Serial number field for Virtual machines #7537

Closed pmusolino-rms closed 3 months ago

pmusolino-rms commented 2 years ago

NetBox version

v3.0.7

Feature type

Data model extension

Proposed functionality

Would it be possible to add a serial number field to virtual machines? I know it could certainly be added as a custom field, but many network devices as they exist in either public/private cloud or vm clusters still retain serial numbers for licensing and seems to be something that could be a standard but not required field.

Use case

Exporting data and inventory/licensing tracking of non physical devices.

Database changes

New field to Virtual machine table

External dependencies

No response

jeremystretch commented 2 years ago

This doesn't sound quite natural to me. The term "serial" implies a succession of unique identifiers which never get repeated. This is feasible and common for hardware because the manufacturer serves the authority for allocating serial numbers, however there is no such authority for virtual machines and thus no guarantee of order or uniqueness. Curious to hear from others.

ziggekatten commented 2 years ago

Well, closest thing in the virtual world are the UUID, wich is the unique identifier of a VM and are sometimes of significant importance.

For example, cloning a VM yields a new UUID on the cloned VM.

We use a custom field for this, and it is good enough for our purpouses, ensuring uniqueness in various systems and automation flows.

rodvand commented 2 years ago

I can see a use case for this. More and more functionality is moving from hardware appliances to virtual appliances and the vendors tend to stick to their "everything needs a license" model. So my virtual Palo Alto firewall has a serial number, and I can see the value in recording this. Not sure if the use case is "wide" enough to warrant a separate field encompassing all virtual machines, but I've definitely thought about it.

aauerswald commented 1 year ago

Hello,

please add the serial field to virtual machines. At the moment we use a custom field, but this is not searchable.

ryanmerolle commented 1 year ago

This could be a good candidate for 3.6

tagur87 commented 1 year ago

I also agree that this would be a helpful field for virtual machines. We are starting to migrate our VPN devices from physical hardware to virtual appliances. These virtual appliances (Ivanti Connect Secure) have serial numbers that are used for registration with the vendor. We have other vendors that also do this...(kemp, clearpass, etc).

I would be willing to try to add this field, since it seems fairly straightforward to add to the VM model.

tagur87 commented 1 year ago

Anyone opposed to aiming at 3.7 for a milestone? I worked up a simple prototype yesterday mirroring the field used in devices.

Any concerns with me working on that?