https://dennismwangi.com/Recent content on Dennis MwangiHugoen-usMon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://dennismwangi.com/posts/netbox-part1/Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://dennismwangi.com/posts/netbox-part1/<p><strong>NetBox</strong> is an open-source Infrastructure Resource Management tool designed to act as that single source of truth. It decouples your network state variables from both your configuration playbooks and your physical hardware.</p> <p>In this guide, we will deploy NetBox locally on Ubuntu and model a very simple set of infrastructural data.</p> <div class="mermaid">graph LR subgraph Truth [Data Layer] NB[(NetBox)] -- "Host Variables & State" --> API[REST API / GraphQL] end subgraph Logic [Execution Layer] API -- "Dynamic Inventory" --> Ans{Ansible Engine} end subgraph Infrastructure [Network Layer] Ans -- "SSH / Netconf" --> R1[Nokia 7750 SR-1] Ans -- "SSH / Netconf" --> R2[Multi-Vendor Edge] end style NB fill:#2d3748,stroke:#4a5568,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff style Ans fill:#1a202c,stroke:#e2e8f0,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff style R1 fill:#2b6cb0,stroke:#4299e1,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff style R2 fill:#2b6cb0,stroke:#4299e1,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff</div><h2 id="1-system-architecture--dependencies">1. System Architecture &amp; Dependencies</h2> <p>Before provisioning, we must understand NetBox&rsquo;s application layers. It is not a single monolith; it is an ecosystem of decoupled components that work together over defined boundaries:</p>