How to Install NetBox on CentOS 7 with Apache and Supervisord

Welcome to our guide on how to Install Netbox on CentOS 7 with Apache and Supervisord. NetBox is an open source web application designed to help manage and document computer networks. Initially conceived by the network engineering team at DigitalOcean.

Netbox encompasses the following aspects of network management:

• IP address management (IPAM) – IP networks and addresses, VRFs, and VLANs
• Equipment racks – Organized by group and site
• Devices – Types of devices and where they are installed
• Connections – Network, console, and power connections among devices
• Virtualization – Virtual machines and clusters
• Data circuits – Long-haul communications circuits and providers
• Secrets – Encrypted storage of sensitive credentials

For Ubuntu / Debian, check:

How To Install NetBox IPAM on Debian 10 Linux

How to Install NetBox on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

For Ubuntu 16.04, use How to install NetBox on Ubuntu 16.04

How to install Netbox on CentOS 7

Follow steps below to install Netbox on your CentOS 7 server.

Add EPEL repository

We need an epel repository to install some dependency packages. Add it to your CentOS 7 server using the following commands:

sudo yum -y install epel-release

Disable SELinux

As we will be using custom TCP ports, it is recommended to disable or put SELinux in permissive mode unless you know how to work with the tool.

sudo setenforce 0
sudo sed -i --follow-symlinks 's/SELINUX=enforcing/SELINUX=disabled/g' /etc/sysconfig/selinux

Install dependency packages

sudo yum install -y gcc httpd git libxml2-devel libxslt libffi-devel graphviz libxslt-devel supervisor

Install Python 3.6

sudo yum -y install yum-utils
sudo yum -y install https://centos7.iuscommunity.org/ius-release.rpm
sudo yum -y install python36u python36u-devel
sudo yum -y install python36u-pip

Install and configure PostgreSQL database server

Install PostgreSQL 9.6

sudo rpm -ivh https://yum.postgresql.org/9.6/redhat/rhel-7.3-x86_64/pgdg-centos96-9.6-3.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install postgresql96 postgresql96-server postgresql96-libs postgresql96-contrib postgresql96-devel

Initialize database

# /usr/pgsql-9.6/bin/postgresql96-setup initdb
Initializing database ... OK

Start and enable PostgreSQL service to start on boot

sudo systemctl enable postgresql-9.6
sudo systemctl start postgresql-9.6
sudo systemctl status postgresql-9.6

Create a database and user for NetBox

$ sudo -u postgres psql

CREATE DATABASE netbox;
CREATE USER netbox WITH PASSWORD 'StrongPassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE netbox TO netbox;
\q

Enable password login to PostgreSQL database

sudo sed -i -e 's/ident/md5/' /var/lib/pgsql/9.6/data/pg_hba.conf

Restart database service for the changes to take effect

sudo systemctl restart postgresql-9.6

Confirm that you can login to database as netbox user

$ psql -U netbox -h localhost -W
Password for user netbox:
psql (9.2.23)
Type "help" for help.
netbox=>

Install and configure Netbox

Change to /opt/ directory

cd /opt/
git clone -b master https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox.git

Create a configuration file

cd netbox/netbox/netbox/
sudo cp configuration.example.py configuration.py

Edit the configuration file and set allowed host and database login details

# Example: ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['netbox.example.com', 'netbox.internal.local']
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['10.1.1.20']

# PostgreSQL database configuration.
DATABASE = {
    'NAME': 'netbox',                           # Database name
    'USER': 'netbox',                           # PostgreSQL username
    'PASSWORD': 'StrongPassword',               # PostgreSQL password
    'HOST': 'localhost',                        # Database server
    'PORT': '',                                 # Database port (leave blank for default)
}

Generate Django SECRET Key:

cd /opt/netbox/netbox
sudo ./generate_secret_key.py

Then set the key on configuration.py file

SECRET_KEY = '30m&hqd@09h2i5hro=^l8wqtjw2$!3j%=f2!zh_sey+13jg%3$'

Install Nextbox dependencies

sudo pip3.6 install -r /opt/netbox/requirements.txt

Migrate database data

cd /opt/netbox/netbox/
sudo python3.6 manage.py migrate

Create admin user

$ sudo python3.6 manage.py createsuperuser

Username (leave blank to use 'root'): admin
Email address: [email protected]
Password:
Password (again):
Superuser created successfully.

Move static files

cd /opt/netbox/netbox
sudo python3.6 manage.py collectstatic

Load initial data

$ sudo python3.6 manage.py loaddata initial_data
Installed 53 object(s) from 5 fixture(s)python3.6 manage.py loaddata initial_data

Install gunicorn using pip3.6

$ sudo pip3.6 install gunicorn
Collecting gunicorn
Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/8c/da/b8dd8deb741bff556db53902d4706774c8e1e67265f69528c14c003644e6/gunicorn-19.9.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (112kB)     100% |████████████████████████████████| 122kB 737kB/s
Installing collected packages: gunicorn
Successfully installed gunicorn-19.9.0

Configure gunicorn for Netbox

sudo vim /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py

command = '/usr/bin/gunicorn'
pythonpath = '/opt/netbox/netbox'
bind = '127.0.0.1:8001'
workers = 3
user = 'apache'

Create a supervisor configuration

$ sudo vim /etc/supervisord.d/netbox.ini

[program:netbox]
command = gunicorn -c /opt/netbox/gunicorn_config.py netbox.wsgi
directory = /opt/netbox/netbox/
user = apache

Start and enable supervisord

sudo systemctl enable supervisord
sudo systemctl start supervisord

Configure httpd or Nginx

For Apache, create VirtualHost on /etc/httpd/conf.d/netbox.conf

Listen 8085
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ServerName netbox.example.com
    Alias /static /opt/netbox/netbox/static
       <Directory /opt/netbox/netbox/static>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride None
            Require all granted
       </Directory>
       <Location  /static>
            ProxyPass !
      </Location>

    ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8001/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8001/

Check apache configuration syntax and restart httpd service

$ sudo httpd -t
Syntax OK
$ sudo systemctl restart httpd

Confirm that the service is listening

# ss -tunelp | grep 8085 
tcp    LISTEN     0      128      :::8085                 :::*                   users:(("httpd",pid=2471,fd=6),("httpd",pid=2470,fd=6),("httpd",pid=2468,fd=6),("httpd",pid=2466,fd=6),("httpd",pid=2465,fd=6),("httpd",pid=2464,fd=6),("httpd",pid=2463,fd=6)) ino:54671265 sk:ffff9890baf47700 v6only:0 <->

For Nginx

Install nginx package

sudo yum -y install nginx

Create a VirtualHost file –> /etc/nginx/conf.d/netbox.conf

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name netbox.example.com;
    client_max_body_size 25m;

    location /static/ {
        alias /opt/netbox/netbox/static/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001;
    }
}

Check syntax and start nginx

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Configure firewalld

If you have a running firewalld service, enable netbox port

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8085/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Access Netbox Web UI

Open your default web browser and open Netbox server IP and port configured on Apache.