NetBox DNS 1.1.0

[peteeckel]

NetBox DNS Release 1.1.0

This release of NetBox DNS focuses on the introduction of the new 'IPAM DNSsync' feature, which replaces the experimental 'IPAM Coupling' feature.

Breaking change

When NetBox DNS 1.1.0 is installed, IPAM Coupling will no longer work.

If you depend on IPAM Coupling, do not upgrade to NetBox DNS 1.1.0 or later, but stay with the NetBox 1.0.x release series.

NetBox 1.0.x will continue to work with NetBox 4.1.x for the foreseeable future, providing a time window to migrate away from IPAM Coupling.

IPAM Coupling is deprecated and will be removed with the release of NetBox 4.2, expected in spring 2025.

Migrate from IPAM Coupling to IPAM DNSsync

While the general goal of providing synchronised DNS address and pointer records for IPAM IP address objects is shared between both features, the mechanisms for achieving this goal are very different. While IPAM Coupling relies essentially on manually defining in which zone a record should be generated for a given IP address, the zone selection in IPAM DNSsync is fully automated and based on mappings between IPAM prefixes and DNS views.

As a result, there is no direct and automated migration path between IPAM Coupling and DNSsync.

Compatibility

However, care has been taken, to minimise the loss of information from IPAM Coupling as possible when migrating to IPAM DNSsync:

• Because IPAM Coupling fills the 'DNS Name' field of coupled IP addresses with the FQDN of the address record created for it, the IP address object already has the correct and validated DNS name, which is used by IPAM DNSsync to create the address record.
• There is always a zone that matches the records that were previously linked to an address record using IPAM Coupling, as this was a prerequisite for being able to create a record.
• The two custom fields 'Disable PTR' and 'TTL' which were used by IPAM Coupling to set the corresponding fields for the coupled address records have remained the same for IPAM DNSsync. Together with the last point this ensures that address records are consistent between the two mechanisms.
• The relations netbox_dns_records from IP addresses to DNS records and ipam_ipaddress in the opposite direction are also identical between both features, so scripts and automations based on API data should need minimal changes at most. One difference is that now an IP address can now have links to multiple address records, whereas with IPAM Coupling there could only be one address record per address.
• The record created for IPAM DNSsync follows the same rules as for IPAM Coupling, which also ensures that both methods create consistent data.

Migration steps

The best way to migrate from IPAM Coupling to IPAM DNSsync depends on how your data is organized in IPAM and NetBox DNS, especially on the size and number of prefixes and the structure of DNS views and zones.

When creating address records for a large number of IP addresses in one go, there almost certainly will be GUI timeouts while the reverse proxy is waiting for the backend to process the data. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done to speed up that process. Make sure your database is well-tuned and your machine has enough CPU and RAM, though RAM will be more essential than CPU in most cases.

1. Upgrade from NetBox DNS 1.0.x to 1.1.x. After the upgrade, IPAM Coupling is no longer in place and IP address will no longer be synchronised to the coupled address records, although the address records will still be in place
2. Run /opt/netbox/netbox/manage.py setup_dnssync to clean up old custom fields from IPAM Coupling and create the new custom field that can be used to disable DNS record creation
3. Select a prefix that contains a moderate number of IP addresses (100-200 should be fine) and assign it to a view that contains the zones with address records connected to it. If your prefixes are much larger, consider creating sub-prefixes at least temporarily and assign the sub-prefixes to views - you can remove them again later on if you don't need them anymore. That operation will take a while depending on the number of addresses
4. Repeat until all IP addresses are covered
5. Finally it might be necessary to check for orphaned managed address records, i.e. address records that still have a link to an IP address but have not been covered by the new automation mechansim. If you were successful in the previous step there shouldn't be any, but in any case I'll write a management command to find and clean up this kind of inconsistency
6. If you find IP addresses in your assigned prefixes that you do not want a DNS record for, either leave the "DNS Name" field empty or select the "Disable DNSsync" custom field

Thanks and Acknowledgements

This new feature was in the making for a very long time, and it would not have been possible without the community. The biggest thank-you goes out to @jean1, who contributed the original code of IPAM Coupling, which constituted the very starting point for the evolution that led to the release of IPAM DNSsync.

There have also been many other community members who contributed suggestions for improvement, ideas, bug reports, more or less exotic use cases, criticism and encouragement, on GitHub by mail or in person. Naming just some would be unfair to the rest, so you know who you are - thank you all!