Frequently Asked Questions

What grouping options are available via the ORM inventory?

There is currently no user/operator defined grouping or inventory. The implementation defines the following groups.

"global",
f"location__{device.location.name}",
f"role__{device.device_role.name}",
f"type__{device.device_type.model}",
f"manufacturer__{device.device_type.manufacturer.name}",

Why is the plugin installed as nautobot_plugin_nornir and not nautobot_nornir?

There is already a repository called nornir-nautobot and in order to avoid the confusion of both a nornir-nautobot and nautobot-nornir, the word plugin was left in the name. While it is clear that this will still remain confusing, it was deemed the lesser of two evils.

What is the difference between nautobot_plugin_nornir and nornir_settings? Why not just flatten?

Nautobot provides each plugin a set of settings and Nornir has it's own settings. In order to "pass on" the Nornir settings as required, this leads to the nesting as seen.

This does often lead to some confusion. Let's take a few examples.

Expected 1:

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
        "nornir_settings": {
            "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.env_vars.CredentialsEnvVars",
            "runner": {
                "plugin": "threaded",
                "options": {
                    "num_workers": 20,
                },
            },
        },
    },
}

Configured 1:

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
        "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.env_vars.CredentialsEnvVars",
        "nornir_settings": {
            "runner": {
                "plugin": "threaded",
                "options": {
                    "num_workers": 20,
                },
            },
        },
    },
}

As you can see the credentials was not set underneath the correct key.

Expected 2:

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
        "nornir_settings": {
            "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.settings_vars.CredentialsSettingsVars",
        },
        "username": "ntc",
        "password": "password123",
        "secret": "password123",
    }
}

Configured 2:

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
        "nornir_settings": {
            "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.settings_vars.CredentialsSettingsVars",
            "username": "ntc",
            "password": "password123",
            "secret": "password123",
        },
    }
}

Once again, the wrong indentation will not work. This leads to errors one would not expect.

How can I set the TCP Port that is used in the connectivity check?

Nornir-Nautobot provides the ability to check the connectivity first via TCP, this port is set per OS driver and is generally port 22. However, you can adjust this yourself, and is partially described in the nornir-nautobot docs.

The docs indicate that there is 3 choices for check connectivity will send attempt to tcp ping the port based on the following order or precedence from most to least preferred.

• If there is a Custom Field called tcp_port that is an integer, prefer that.
• Next check if there is a Config Context key called tcp_port and if it is a valid integer, prefer that.
• Finally, there is default for each driver, which is generally port 22 which it will be defaulted to.