This document describes two different intentions:
- Extend the image: Adjust the existing Docker image to the needs of your organization. This can reduce the number of environment variables you have to configure.
- Build the image from scratch: This is mostly useful to you when you work on
netbox-docker
itself.
Which build do you need?
tl;dr: You need the Extend the image build.
- Custom Configuration File: Extend the image
- Additional Files: Extend the image
- Custom Nginx Configuration: Either build your own nginx-based Docker image or extend the netbox-docker image
- NetBox Plugin: Extend the image
- ⚠️ See the extra guide Using NetBox Plugins
- Using many plugins / track upstream plugins: Build the Image from Scratch
- Develop NetBox : Build the Image from Scratch
Extend the Image
The purpose of enhancing the image is usually to embed additional scripts, change the default configuration file or add a Netbox plugin.
This usually works by using the netboxcommunity/netbox
image as base image:
FROM netboxcommunity/netbox:v2.6.6
COPY my_configuration.py /etc/netbox/config/extra_configuration.py
COPY my_reports/ /etc/netbox/reports/
COPY my_scripts/ /etc/netbox/scripts/
You don't have to add all the files. Usually you will only copy (and maybe overwrite) the files which you need to adjust.
Build the Image from Scratch
Hint: Unless you work on NetBox itself there should be no reason for re-building the image from scratch for your own purposes.
The netbox-docker
Docker image has a rather complex build system.
That's why all of the complexity is captured in a few build scripts:
build.sh
: This is the main build script. It is called by all the other scripts. Run./build.sh --help
to see all the options.build-next.sh
: Builds themaster
Git branch aslatest
, thedevelop
Git branch assnapshot
and thedevelop-*
branches asdevelop-*
.build-latest.sh
: Queries Github to get the most recent tag. When launched withPRERELEASE=true
it will build a pre-release tag (usually beta releases) if the version of the pre-release is newer than the newest release tag. This produces a version likev2.6.6
and also tagsv2.6
.
Build Targets
The Docker file knows multiple build targets:
builder
: It's goal is to compile all the Python dependencies. Thereby the other targets can be kept slimmer because they don't need to have all the build dependencies installed. It's also good for caching.main
: Extendsbuilder
and adds all the NetBox code and all the configuration files.ldap
: Extendsmain
and adds ldap-related dependencies and configuration files.
Automatic Build
There are automatic builds configured based on Github Actions, which are trigger once a day and on every commit to the master
branch of netbox-docker
.
The automatic build relies on the same /build*.sh
files as described above.