Nornir Nautobot Inventory Configuration

Nornir Inventory takes several configuration options, but can be executed without any options (if you complete the proper environment variables).

Configuration Options

There are two required parameters that may be loaded either through configuration or through the environment.

Option	Parameter	Value	Default	Environment Variable
Nautobot URL	nautobot_url	Required: String - The base url of Nautobot (`http://localhost:8000` or `https://nautobot_url`)	env(NAUTOBOT_URL)	NAUTOBOT_URL
Nautobot Token	nautobot_token	Required: String - The token to authenticate to Nautobot API	env(NAUTOBOT_TOKEN)	NAUTOBOT_TOKEN
SSL Verify	ssl_verify	Boolean - True or False to verify SSL	True
Filter Parameters	filter_parameters	Dictionary - Key/value pairs corresponding to Nautobot API searches	{}

Using Inventory

Initialization via Environment Variables, No Options

Without any options configured the plugin will search the environment for the URL and TOKEN to be used. This also will validate any certificates for the inventory.

nornir_obj = InitNornir(
    inventory={
        "plugin": "NautobotInventory",
    },
)

Construct

Pynautobot will provide for the basic information that is required for Nornir to be able to leverage the inventory. The pynautobot object will also be made available at host.data.pynautobot_object to be able to access information provided from the dcim devices endpoint.

Filtering

With the Nornir Nautobot Inventory plugin you have the option of using all of the Django REST Framework filters. You can pass the options that you use via the API into the inventory to provide additional filtering parameters using the configuration option filter_parameters (see next section for examples). This is not part of the F filter that comes with Nornir. This is filtering of devices from even entering the inventory.

To use the examples in the directory you need to also install into the container/environment nornir_utils. The print_result function is not included in the base Nornir and to get this utility to print out the full Hello World task you need to have this utility.

Filtering Examples

For each of the examples the sites correspond to the first three letters of the devices below:

>>> nautobot.dcim.devices.all()
[den-rtr01, den-rtr02, grb-rtr01, msp-rtr01, msp-rtr02, nyc-rtr01, nyc-rtr02]

Filtering Example: Select from single site

To filter from a single site you can use the filter site to get the devices at a single site based on the slug for the site:

site = "msp"

my_nornir = InitNornir(
    inventory={
        "plugin": "NautobotInventory",
        "options": {
            "nautobot_url": os.getenv("NAUTOBOT_URL"),
            "nautobot_token": os.getenv("NAUTBOT_TOKEN"),
            "filter_parameters": {"site": site},
            "ssl_verify": False,
        },
    },
)

print(f"Hosts found: {len(my_nornir.inventory.hosts)}")
# Print out the keys for the inventory
print(my_nornir.inventory.hosts.keys())

This results in:

root@2e8168a1c3e7:/local# python examples/filter_site.py 
Hosts found: 2
dict_keys(['msp-rtr01', 'msp-rtr02'])

Filter Example: Multiple Sites

To search within multiple sites, pass a list of site slugs. In the example below, it is the same as the previous example with a list passed in instead of a single string.

site = ["msp", "grb"]

my_nornir = InitNornir(
    inventory={
        "plugin": "NautobotInventory",
        "options": {
            "nautobot_url": os.getenv("NAUTOBOT_URL"),
            "nautobot_token": os.getenv("NAUTBOT_TOKEN"),
            "filter_parameters": {"site": site},
            "ssl_verify": False,
        },
    },
)

print(f"Hosts found: {len(my_nornir.inventory.hosts)}")
# Print out the keys for the inventory
print(my_nornir.inventory.hosts.keys())

Results in:

root@2e8168a1c3e7:/local# python examples/filter_multiple_sites.py 
Hosts found: 3
dict_keys(['grb-rtr01', 'msp-rtr01', 'msp-rtr02'])

Filtering Example: Not at a site

The negative filters also are supported. These are all of the filters possible. Here we will search for devices not at MSP:

not_site = "msp"

my_nornir = InitNornir(
    inventory={
        "plugin": "NautobotInventory",
        "options": {
            "nautobot_url": os.getenv("NAUTOBOT_URL"),
            "nautobot_token": os.getenv("NAUTBOT_TOKEN"),
            "filter_parameters": {"site__n": not_site},
            "ssl_verify": False,
        },
    },
)

print(f"Hosts found: {len(my_nornir.inventory.hosts)}")
# Print out the keys for the inventory
print(my_nornir.inventory.hosts.keys())

Results in:

root@2e8168a1c3e7:/local# python examples/filter_negate_site.py 
Hosts found: 5
dict_keys(['den-rtr01', 'den-rtr02', 'grb-rtr01', 'nyc-rtr01', 'nyc-rtr02'])

Inventory Parameters

Parameter precedence follows:

Definition of variable in the configuration
Gathered from the environment when not defined by the configuration

nautobot_url

Default: Environment Variable Look Up Environment Variable: NAUTOBOT_URL

The base URL of Nautobot. Include the http:// or https:// but nothing after the URL. Include the port if it is available on a non standard HTTP (80) or HTTPS (443) port.

nautobot_token

Default: Environment Variable Look Up Environment Variable: NAUTOBOT_TOKEN

The token to use to interact with the REST API of Nautobot.

ssl_verify

Whether or not to verify the certificate from Nautobot.

filter_parameters

The filtering parameters provided as a dictionary of key/value pairs. The keys should match parameters of DCIM Devices API endpoint. To test the parameters it is recommended to use the API docs (linked at the bottom of Nautobot) to help identify appropriate filter parameters.

Getting Started with the Examples

You can test out this without installing into your own system following these steps to test yourself.

Requirements

Docker
Python Invoke (pip install invoke)

Building the Docker container and executing

Execute invoke build to build a container
Execute invoke cli to enter into the bash shell

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