How to link/map Devices and virtual machines from other sources

[Kloppi313]

Hi,
I have to use an external system as single point of truth for devices and virtual machines.
The Importway is clear - I use ansible netbox modules.

Now the tricky part:
It happens that devices and virtual machines have to be renamed.
How would keep the link between source system CI and netbox CI? Renaming an object on the external site should not lead to create a new object in netbox and abandon the old one.

In the external system there are UUIDs, that will not change while renaming an object.
In devices I found "Asset tag" which could fit, but this does not exist in virtual machines.
Do I have the set the name in netbox to the UUID or is there a better solution?

[chris240189]

You can add a custom field to any netbox object if you need to store external identifiers.
Renaming things though ansible netbox modules is not straight forward, as it expects the names to be a unique identifer, so renaming doesn't work or at least I haven't understand how to do it.

I have a similar problem with VLANs that I import from another system where VLANs might get renamed but keep their number.

To do a "sync" I query all my objects from the external source and from netbox and match them on the identifier and do a

  ansible.builtin.uri:
...
    method: PATCH
...

on them.

[Kloppi313]

Thank you!
I agree that renaming with netbox modules might not be the scope of those modules - because the name is - indeed - the identifyer.

I will think about the two options I see for now:

• using the netbox CI name with the external source UUID and add a new custom fiel: CI name
• implement your way via directly interacting with the api via ansible uri module. thank you for that hint. previously I did not have this way in mind. - I guess I would have also to add a new custom field: UUID - to match. but this might be better usability