NetBox Device Type Import

This library is intended to be your friend and help you import all the device-types defined within the NetBox Device Type Library Repository.

Tested working with 2.9.4, 2.10.4

Description

This script will clone a copy of the netbox-community/devicetype-library repository to your machine to allow it to import the device types you would like without copy and pasting them into the NetBox UI.

Getting Started

1. This script uses uv for dependency management.

   uv sync

2. There are two variables that are required when using this script to import device types into your NetBox installation. (1) Your NetBox instance URL and (2) a token with write rights.

Copy the existing .env.example to your own .env file, and fill in the variables.

cp .env.example .env
vim .env

Finally, we are able to execute the script and import some device templates!

Usage

To use the script, simply execute the script as follows. uv will handle the virtual environment.

uv run nb-dt-import.py

This will clone the latest master branch from the netbox-community/devicetype-library from GitHub and install it into the repo subdirectory. If this directory already exists, it will perform a git pull to update the repository instead.

Next, it will loop over every manufacturer and every device of every manufacturer and begin checking if your NetBox install already has them, and if not, creates them. It will skip preexisting manufacturers, devices, interfaces, etc. so as to not end up with duplicate entries in your NetBox instance.

Arguments

This script currently accepts a list of vendors as an argument, so that you can selectively import devices.

To import only device by APC, for example:

./nb-dt-import.py --vendors apc

--vendors can also accept a comma-separated list of vendors if you want to import multiple.

./nb-dt-import.py --vendors apc,juniper

Update Mode

By default, the script only creates new device types and skips existing ones. To update existing device types:

./nb-dt-import.py --update

This will:

• Add new components (interfaces, power ports, etc.) that are in YAML but missing from NetBox
• Update properties of existing components if they've changed
• Update device type properties (u_height, part_number, etc.) if they've changed
• Report components that exist in NetBox but are missing from YAML (won't delete by default)

Component Removal (Use with Caution)

WARNING: Removing components can affect existing device instances in NetBox.

If you've changed a device type definition (for example, converting interfaces to module-bays to support SFP modules), you can remove obsolete components with:

./nb-dt-import.py --update --remove-components

This will delete any components (interfaces, ports, bays, etc.) that exist in NetBox but are no longer present in the YAML definition.

Use cases:

• Converting fixed interfaces to module-bays for modular devices
• Removing incorrectly defined components from device templates
• Cleaning up after major device type definition changes

Important considerations:

• Components attached to actual device instances may prevent deletion
• Review the change detection report before enabling component removal
• Test on a staging NetBox instance first if possible

Docker build

It's possible to use this project as a docker container.

To build:

docker build -t netbox-devicetype-import-library .

Alternatively you can pull a pre-built image from GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io):

docker pull ghcr.io/minitriga/netbox-device-type-library-import

The container supports the following env var as configuration:

• REPO_URL, the repo to look for device types (defaults to https://github.com/netbox-community/devicetype-library.git)
• REPO_BRANCH, the branch to check out if appropriate, defaults to master.
• NETBOX_URL, used to access netbox
• NETBOX_TOKEN, token for accessing netbox
• VENDORS, a comma-separated list of vendors to import (defaults to None)
• REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE, path to a CA_BUNDLE for validation if you are using self-signed certificates (file must be included in the container)

To run:

docker run -e "NETBOX_URL=http://netbox:8080/" \
  -e "NETBOX_TOKEN=98765434567890" \
  ghcr.io/minitriga/netbox-device-type-library-import

Contributing

We're happy about any pull requests!

License

MIT