Nautobot Docker Images¶

Nautobot is packaged as a Docker image for use in a production environment. The published image is based on the python:3.6-slim image to maintain the most compatibility with Nautobot deployments. The Docker image and deployment strategies are being actively developed, check back here or join the #nautobot Slack channel on Network to Code for the most up to date information.

Tags¶

The Docker image is published to Docker Hub.

To get the image from Docker Hub run:

docker image pull networktocode/nautobot

The following tags are available:

• X.Y.Z these images are built with the same baseline as the released Python packages based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• X.Y.Z-py${PYTHON_VER} these images are built with the same baseline as the released Python packages based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container
• stable these images are built from the latest code in the main branch (should be the latest released version) based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• stable-py${PYTHON_VER} these images are built from the latest code in the main branch (should be the latest released version) based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container
• latest these images are built from the latest code in the develop branch based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• latest-py${PYTHON_VER} these images are built from the latest code in the develop branch based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container
• develop these images are built from the latest code in the develop branch on each commit based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• develop-${GIT_SHA:0:7}-$(date +%s) tags for each commit to the develop branch based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• develop-py${PYTHON_VER} these images are built from the latest code in the develop branch on each commit based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container
• develop-${GIT_SHA:0:7}-$(date +%s)-py${PYTHON_VER} tags for each commit to the develop branch based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container
• next these images are built from the latest code in the next branch on each commit based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• next-${GIT_SHA:0:7}-$(date +%s) tags for each commit to the next branch based on the default python version (3.6) docker container
• next-py${PYTHON_VER} these images are built from the latest code in the next branch on each commit based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container
• next-${GIT_SHA:0:7}-$(date +%s)-py${PYTHON_VER} tags for each commit to the next branch based on the python version ($PYTHON_VER) docker container

To pull a specific tag you can append the image name with :tag for example, to pull the 1.0.0 image:

$ docker image pull networktocode/nautobot:1.0.0

Currently images are pushed for the following python versions:

• 3.6
• 3.7
• 3.8
• 3.9

Getting Started¶

Nautobot requires a MySQL or PostgreSQL database and Redis instance before it will start. Because of this the quickest and easiest way to get Nautobot running is with docker-compose, which will install and configure PostgreSQL and Redis containers for you automatically.

Configuration¶

Most configuration parameters are available via environment variables which can be passed to the container. If you desire you can inject your own nautobot_config.py by overriding /opt/nautobot/nautobot_config.py using docker volumes by adding -v /local/path/to/custom/nautobot_config.py:/opt/nautobot/nautobot_config.py to your docker run command, for example:

$ docker run --name nautobot -v /local/path/to/custom/nautobot_config.py:/opt/nautobot/nautobot_config.py networktocode/nautobot

Or if you are using docker-compose:

services:
  nautobot:
    image: "networktocode/nautobot"
    volumes:
      - /local/path/to/custom/nautobot_config.py:/opt/nautobot/nautobot_config.py:ro

Docker only configuration¶

The entry point for the Docker container has some additional features that can be configured via additional environment variables. The following are all optional variables:

NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER¶

Default: unset

Enables creation of a super user specified by NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_NAME, NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_EMAIL, NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD, and NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_API_TOKEN.

---

NAUTOBOT_DOCKER_SKIP_INIT¶

Default: unset

When starting, the container attempts to connect to the database and run database migrations and upgrade steps necessary when upgrading versions. In normal operation this is harmless to run on every startup and validates the database is operating correctly. However, in certain circumstances such as database maintenance when the database is in a read-only mode it may make sense to start Nautobot but skip these steps. Setting this variable to true will start Nautobot without running these initial steps.

---

NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_API_TOKEN¶

Default: unset

If NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER is true, NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_API_TOKEN specifies the API token of the super user to be created; alternatively the /run/secrets/superuser_api_token file contents are read for the token. Either the variable or the file is required if NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER is true.

---

NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_EMAIL¶

Default: admin@example.com

If NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER is true, NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_EMAIL specifies the email address of the super user to be created.

---

NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_NAME¶

Default: admin

If NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER is true, NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_NAME specifies the username of the super user to be created.

---

NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD¶

Default: unset

If NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER is true, NAUTOBOT_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD specifies the password of the super user to be created; alternatively the /run/secrets/superuser_password file contents are read for the password. Either the variable or the file is required if NAUTOBOT_CREATE_SUPERUSER is true.

---

uWSGI¶

The docker container uses uWSGI to serve Nautobot. A default configuration is provided, and can be overridden by injecting a new uwsgi.ini file at /opt/nautobot/uwsgi.ini. There are a couple of environment variables provided to override some uWSGI defaults:

NAUTOBOT_UWSGI_LISTEN¶

Default: 128

The socket listen queue size of uWSGI. In production environments it is recommended to increase this value to 1024 or higher, however depending on your platform, this may require additional kernel parameter settings, please see the uWSGI documentation for more information.

Please see the official uWSGI documentation on listen for more information.

---

NAUTOBOT_UWSGI_PROCESSES¶

Default: 3

The number of worker processes uWSGI will spawn.

Please see the official uWSGI documentation on processes for more information.

---

SSL¶

Self signed SSL certificates are included by default with the container. For a production deployment you should utilize your own signed certificates, these can be injected into the container at runtime using docker volumes. The public certificate should be placed at /opt/nautobot/nautobot.crt and the private key should be at /opt/nautobot/nautobot.key. Using a docker run these can be injected using the -v parameter:

$ docker run --name nautobot -v /local/path/to/custom/nautobot.crt:/opt/nautobot/nautobot.crt -v /local/path/to/custom/nautobot.key:/opt/nautobot/nautobot.key networktocode/nautobot

Or if you are using docker-compose:

services:
  nautobot:
    image: "networktocode/nautobot"
    volumes:
      - /local/path/to/custom/nautobot.crt:/opt/nautobot/nautobot.crt:ro
      - /local/path/to/custom/nautobot.key:/opt/nautobot/nautobot.key:ro

Nautobot Plugins¶

At this time adding Nautobot plugins to the existing Docker image is not supported, however, you can use the Nautobot image as the base within your Dockerfile to install your own plugins, here is an example dockerfile:

FROM networktocode/nautobot

RUN pip install nautobot-chatops

COPY nautobot_config.py /opt/nautobot/nautobot_config.py

Building the Image¶

If you have a development environment you can use invoke to build the docker images. By default invoke build will build the development containers:

$ invoke build
...
$ docker images
REPOSITORY                                                                TAG                    IMAGE ID       CREATED          SIZE
networktocode/nautobot-dev                                                local                  25487d93fc1f   16 seconds ago   630MB

If you need to build or test the final image, you must set your invoke.yml to use docker-compose.build.yml in place of docker-compose.dev.yml:

---
nautobot:
  compose_files:
    - "docker-compose.yml"
    - "docker-compose.build.yml"

Then you can re-run the invoke build command:

$ invoke build
...
$ docker images
REPOSITORY                                                                TAG                    IMAGE ID       CREATED          SIZE
networktocode/nautobot                                                    local                  0a24d68da987   55 seconds ago   337MB

If you do not have a development environment created you can also build the container using the regular docker build command:

$ docker build -t networktocode/nautobot -f ./docker/Dockerfile --build-arg PYTHON_VER=3.6 .

Docker Compose¶

An example library for using Docker Compose to build out all of the components for Nautobot can be found within the Nautobot community. Please see https://github.com/nautobot/nautobot-docker-compose/ for examples on the base application, LDAP integration, and using plugins.