NetBox to Zabbix synchronization

A script to create, update and delete Zabbix hosts using NetBox device objects.

Installation via Docker

To pull the latest stable version to your local cache, use the following docker pull command:

docker pull ghcr.io/thenetworkguy/netbox-zabbix-sync:main

Make sure to specify the needed environment variables for the script to work (see here) on the command line or use an env file.

docker run -d -t -i -e ZABBIX_HOST='https://zabbix.local' \ 
-e ZABBIX_TOKEN='othersecrettoken' \
-e NETBOX_HOST='https://netbox.local' \
-e NETBOX_TOKEN='secrettoken' \
--name netbox-zabbix-sync ghcr.io/thenetworkguy/netbox-zabbix-sync:main

This should run a one-time sync, you can check the sync with docker logs netbox-zabbix-sync.

The image uses the default config.py for it's configuration, you can use a volume mount in the docker run command to override with your own config file if needed (see config file):

docker run -d -t -i -v $(pwd)/config.py:/opt/netbox-zabbix/config.py ...

Installation from Source

Cloning the repository

git clone https://github.com/TheNetworkGuy/netbox-zabbix-sync.git

Packages

Make sure that you have a python environment with the following packages installed. You can also use the requirements.txt file for installation with pip.

pynetbox
pyzabbix

Config file

First time user? Copy the config.py.example file to config.py. This file is used for modifying filters and setting variables such as custom field names.

cp config.py.example config.py

Set environment variables

Set the following environment variables:

ZABBIX_HOST="https://zabbix.local"
ZABBIX_USER="username"
ZABBIX_PASS="Password"
NETBOX_HOST="https://netbox.local"
NETBOX_TOKEN="secrettoken"

Or, you can use a Zabbix API token to login instead of using a username and password. In that case ZABBIX_USER and ZABBIX_PASS will be ignored.

ZABBIX_TOKEN=othersecrettoken

If you are using custom SSL certificates for NetBox and/or Zabbix, you can set the following environment variable to the path of your CA bundle file:

REQUEST_CA_BUNDLE=/path/to/your/ca-bundle.crt

NetBox custom fields

Use the following custom fields in NetBox (if you are using config context for the template information then the zabbix_template field is not required):

* Type: Integer
* Name: zabbix_hostid
* Required: False
* Default: null
* Object: dcim > device

* Type: Text
* Name: zabbix_template
* Required: False
* Default: null
* Object: dcim > device_type

You can make the zabbix_hostid field hidden or read-only to prevent human intervention.

This is optional and there is a use case for leaving it read-write in the UI to manually change the ID. For example to re-run a sync.

Virtual Machine (VM) Syncing

In order to use VM syncing, make sure that the zabbix_id custom field is also present on Virtual machine objects in NetBox.

Use the config.py file and set the sync_vms variable to True.

You can set the vm_hostgroup_format variable to a customizable value for VM hostgroups. The default is cluster_type/cluster/role.

To enable filtering for VM's, check the nb_vm_filter variable out. It works the same as with the device filter (see documentation under "Hostgroup layout"). Note that not all filtering capabilities and properties of devices are applicable to VM's and vice-versa. Check the NetBox API documentation to see which filtering options are available for each object type.

Config file

Hostgroup

Setting the create_hostgroups variable to False requires manual hostgroup creation for devices in a new category. I would recommend setting this variable to True since leaving it on False results in a lot of manual work.

The format can be set with the hostgroup_format variable for devices and vm_hostgroup_format for devices.

Any nested parent hostgroups will also be created automatically. For instance the region Berlin with parent region Germany will create the hostgroup Germany/Berlin.

Make sure that the Zabbix user has proper permissions to create hosts. The hostgroups are in a nested format. This means that proper permissions only need to be applied to the site name hostgroup and cascaded to any child hostgroups.

Layout

The default hostgroup layout is "site/manufacturer/device_role". You can change this behaviour with the hostgroup_format variable. The following values can be used:

Both devices and virtual machines

name	description
role	Role name of a device or VM
region	The region name
site	Site name
site_group	Site group name
tenant	Tenant name
tenant_group	Tenant group name
platform	Software platform of a device or VM
custom fields	See the section "Layout -> Custom Fields" to use custom fields as hostgroup variable

Only for devices

name	description
location	The device location name
manufacturer	Device manufacturer name

Only for VMs

name	description
cluster	VM cluster name
cluster_type	VM cluster type

You can specify the value sperated by a "/" like so:

hostgroup_format = "tenant/site/dev_location/role"

Group traversal

The default behaviour for region is to only use the directly assigned region in the rendered hostgroup name. However, by setting traverse_region to True in config.py the script will render a full region path of all parent regions for the hostgroup name. traverse_site_groups controls the same behaviour for site_groups.

Custom fields

You can use the value of custom fields for hostgroup generation. This allows more freedom and even allows a full static mapping instead of a dynamic rendered hostgroup name.

For instance a custom field with the name mycustomfieldname and type string has the following values for 2 devices:

Device A has the value Train for custom field mycustomfieldname.
Device B has the value Bus for custom field mycustomfieldname.
Both devices are located in the site Paris.

With the hostgroup format site/mycustomfieldname the following hostgroups will be generated:

Device A: Paris/Train
Device B: Paris/Bus

Empty variables or hostgroups

Should the content of a variable be empty, then the hostgroup position is skipped.

For example, consider the following scenario with 2 devices, both the same device type and site. One of them is linked to a tenant, the other one does not have a relationship with a tenant.

• Device_role: PDU
• Site: HQ-AMS

hostgroup_format = "site/tenant/device_role"

When running the script like above, the following hostgroup (HG) will be generated for both hosts:

• Device A with no relationship with a tenant: HQ-AMS/PDU
• Device B with a relationship to tenant "Fork Industries": HQ-AMS/Fork Industries/PDU

The same logic applies to custom fields being used in the HG format:

hostgroup_format = "site/mycustomfieldname"

For device A with the value "ABC123" in the custom field "mycustomfieldname" -> HQ-AMS/ABC123 For a device which does not have a value in the custom field "mycustomfieldname" -> HQ-AMS

Should there be a scenario where a custom field does not have a value under a device, and the HG format only uses this single variable, then this will result in an error:

hostgroup_format = "mycustomfieldname"

NetBox-Zabbix-sync - ERROR - ESXI1 has no reliable hostgroup. This is most likely due to the use of custom fields that are empty.

Device status

By setting a status on a NetBox device you determine how the host is added (or updated) in Zabbix. There are, by default, 3 options:

• Delete the host from Zabbix (triggered by NetBox status "Decommissioning" and "Inventory")
• Create the host in Zabbix but with a disabled status (Trigger by "Offline", "Planned", "Staged" and "Failed")
• Create the host in Zabbix with an enabled status (For now only enabled with the "Active" status)

You can modify this behaviour by changing the following list variables in the script:

• zabbix_device_removal
• zabbix_device_disable

Zabbix Inventory

This script allows you to enable the inventory on managed Zabbix hosts and sync NetBox device properties to the specified inventory fields. To map NetBox information to NetBox inventory fields, set inventory_sync to True.

You can set the inventory mode to "disabled", "manual" or "automatic" with the inventory_mode variable. See Zabbix Manual for more information about the modes.

Use the inventory_map variable to map which NetBox properties are used in which Zabbix Inventory fields. For nested properties, you can use the '/' seperator. For example, the following map will assign the custom field 'mycustomfield' to the 'alias' Zabbix inventory field:

inventory_sync = True
inventory_mode = "manual"
inventory_map = { "custom_fields/mycustomfield/name": "alias"}

See config.py.example for an extensive example map. Any Zabix Inventory fields that are not included in the map will not be touched by the script, so you can safely add manual values or use items to automatically add values to other fields.

Template source

You can either use a NetBox device type custom field or NetBox config context for the Zabbix template information.

Using a custom field allows for only one template. You can assign multiple templates to one host using the config context source. Should you make use of an advanced templating structure with lots of nesting then i would recommend sticking to the custom field.

You can change the behaviour in the config file. By default this setting is false but you can set it to true to use config context:

templates_config_context = True

After that make sure that for each host there is at least one template defined in the config context in this format:

{
    "zabbix": {
        "templates": [
            "TemplateA",
            "TemplateB",
            "TemplateC",
            "Template123"
        ]
    }
}

You can also opt for the default device type custom field behaviour but with the added benefit of overwriting the template should a device in NetBox have a device specific context defined. In this case the device specific context template(s) will take priority over the device type custom field template.

templates_config_context_overrule = True

Permissions

NetBox

Make sure that the NetBox user has proper permissions for device read and modify (modify to set the Zabbix HostID custom field) operations. The user should also have read-only access to the device types.

Zabbix

Make sure that the Zabbix user has permissions to read hostgroups and proxy servers. The user should have full rights on creating, modifying and deleting hosts.

If you want to automatically create hostgroups then the create permission on host-groups should also be applied.

Custom links

To make the user experience easier you could add a custom link that redirects users to the Zabbix latest data.

* Name: zabbix_latestData
* Text: {% if object.cf["zabbix_hostid"] %}Show host in Zabbix{% endif %}
* URL: http://myzabbixserver.local/zabbix.php?action=latest.view&hostids[]={{ object.cf["zabbix_hostid"] }}

Running the script

python3 netbox_zabbix_sync.py

Flags

Flag	Option	Description
-v	verbose	Log with debugging on.

Config context

Zabbix proxy

You can set the proxy for a device using the 'proxy' key in config context.

{
    "zabbix": {
        "proxy": "yourawesomeproxy.local"
    }
}

It is now posible to specify proxy groups with the introduction of Proxy groups in Zabbix 7. Specifying a group in the config context on older Zabbix releases will have no impact and the script will ignore the statement.

{
    "zabbix": {
        "proxy_group": "yourawesomeproxygroup.local"
    }
}

The script will prefer groups when specifying both a proxy and group. This is done with the assumption that groups are more resiliant and HA ready, making it a more logical choice to use for proxy linkage. This also makes migrating from a proxy to proxy group easier since the group take priority over the invidivual proxy.

{
    "zabbix": {
        "proxy": "yourawesomeproxy.local",
        "proxy_group": "yourawesomeproxygroup.local"
    }
}

In the example above the host will use the group on Zabbix 7. On Zabbix 6 and below the host will use the proxy. Zabbix 7 will use the proxy value when ommiting the proxy_group value.

Because of the possible amount of destruction when setting up NetBox but forgetting the proxy command, the sync works a bit different. By default everything is synced except in a situation where the Zabbix host has a proxy configured but nothing is configured in NetBox. To force deletion and a full sync, set the full_proxy_sync variable in the config file.

Set interface parameters within NetBox

When adding a new device, you can set the interface type with custom context. By default, the following configuration is applied when no config context is provided:

• SNMPv2
• UDP 161
• Bulk requests enabled
• SNMP community: {$SNMP_COMMUNITY}

Due to Zabbix limitations of changing interface type with a linked template, changing the interface type from within NetBox is not supported and the script will generate an error.

For example when changing a SNMP interface to an Agent interface:

NetBox-Zabbix-sync - WARNING - Device: Interface OUT of sync.
NetBox-Zabbix-sync - ERROR - Device: changing interface type to 1 is not supported.

To configure the interface parameters you'll need to use custom context. Custom context was used to make this script as customizable as posible for each environment. For example, you could:

• Set the custom context directly on a device
• Set the custom context on a label, which you would add to a device (for instance, SNMPv3)
• Set the custom context on a device role
• Set the custom context on a site or region

Agent interface configuration example

{
    "zabbix": {
        "interface_port": 1500,
        "interface_type": 1
    }
}

SNMPv2 interface configuration example

{
    "zabbix": {
        "interface_port": 161,
        "interface_type": 2,
        "snmp": {
            "bulk": 1,
            "community": "SecretCommunity",
            "version": 2
        }
    }
}

SNMPv3 interface configuration example

{
    "zabbix": {
        "interface_port": 1610,
        "interface_type": 2,
        "snmp": {
            "authpassphrase": "SecretAuth",
            "bulk": 1,
            "securitylevel": 1,
            "securityname": "MySecurityName",
            "version": 3
        }
    }
}

I would recommend using macros for sensitive data such as community strings since the data in NetBox is plain-text.

NOTE: Not all SNMP data is required for a working configuration. The following parameters are allowedbut are not all required, depending on your environment.