How to document circuit that goes through several patch panels?

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

Hello everyone.

I need to document circuits like SW1365 eth 1/48 <2m MMF LC 10G> PP1375 p45 <4m MMF LC 10G> PP1377 p45 <1m MMF LC 10G> RT1424 Te 0/1/0 (Switch > patch panel > patch panel > Router)

Can`t find how to do it using Netbox because only 2 sides for each circuit designed.

Any suggestions? 

Thank you.

[davide Colombo]

Hi, 

First of all, would be better if you provide us some info about the environment you're using and some more information about how the devices are modeled, anyway, if I have understand your request you need to get the full trace of a connection starting from a device, am I right ? If you're on netbox > 2.5 you can simply use the trace function by clicking on the "share button" next to the cable id in the interfaces table view.

If you're on netbox < 2.5 the only way is to manually follow the connections and write them down, or, if you can write some python you can always write a script to automate this task.

Available for other clarifications.

[Brian Candler]

* Create devices representing your patch panels

* On each patch panel, create "rear ports" and "front ports" (in that order)

* Each front port that you create must be linked to a rear port: that's why you create the rear ports first.

* Multiple front ports can be associated with the same rear port, e.g. for MPO cables.  This is a property that you set when creating the rear port.  For example, if you have a 48-way patch panel, where all the ports are connected 1:1 to another 48-way patch panel, then you can create a single rear port (say called "R") with positions=48.  Then you can associate 48 separate front ports linked to the same rear port.

* Create cable(s) to connect the rear port(s) of patch panels together

* Create cable(s) to connect from device interface to patch panel front port, and if necessary from one patch panel front port to another patch panel front port.

So in your example, there is a cable from SW1365 eth 1/48 to PP1375 front port 45; a cable from PP1375 rear port 45 to PP1377 rear port 45; and a cable from PP1377 front port 45 to RT1424 Te 0/1/0.  When this is done, you'll find the interfaces are connected, and you can also trace the cable path.

If you decide to have 48 separate rear ports then you'll need 48 separate cables from the rear ports of one patch panel to the rear ports of another; write a little script to generate a CSV file of cables, and then import it. I prefer to label front ports "F45" and rear ports "R45" for clarity, although this isn't necessary (they could both be called "45").

Alternatively you can create a single rear port R with 48 positions, and front ports F[1-48] linked to R.  Note that the syntax "F[1-48]" is valid for bulk creation of ports, and works whether you are linking to a single rear port, or 48 separate rear ports.

There is one major stumbling block, which is that Netbox can't model SFPs, and it can't model a single interface connecting to two fibres.  As long as all your fibre connections are duplex, then you can consider a "fibre pair" as a single cable, and the problem goes away.  Same if all your SFPs are bidi.  But if you have a mixture of duplex and bidi SFPs, it becomes unworkable.

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

Thanks everyone for your answers. However, I can`t find out how to trace the full circuit with all intermediate connections.

I mean, for example I have this circuit: <CP1 XC: 802MMR1 Panel 10 Ports107/108> PP1371p25 <1m SMF OS2 LC> MFC1356p5C1 - MFC1356p5C2 <1m SMF OS2 LC> WDM1358c35 <> WDM1360c35 <1m SMF OS2 LC> MFC1357p1A1 - MFC1357p1A2 <1m SMF OS2 LC> PP1374p5 <4m SMF OS2 LC> PP1376p5 <1m SMF OS2 LC> RT Te 0/0/0

1) I created a circuit, where Termination A is Panel 10 Ports107/108 and Termination Z is Router - RT Te 0/0/0 (so, it`s the first and the last point of this circuit)

2) I created 8 intermediate devices (I mean all that patch panels and transport chassis) and connections between them

How can I trace the full circuit now?

When I click on circuit terminations I see only endpoints without intermediate connections.

When I click to trace cables, I am only able to see that particular cable. Like when I trace SMF OS2 LC cable in menu of MFC1357 I cee only the part "MFC1357p1A1 - MFC1357p1A2 <1m SMF OS2 LC> PP1374p5 <4m SMF OS2 LC> PP1376p5 <1m SMF OS2 LC> RT Te 0/0/0" but not "<CP1 XC: 802MMR1 Panel 10 Ports107/108> PP1371p25 <1m SMF OS2 LC> MFC1356p5C1 - MFC1356p5C2 <1m SMF OS2 LC> WDM1358c35 <>" because the cable between  WDM1358c35 and WDM1360c35 is not specified.

So, my question is how can I:

1. Trace the whole connections path from the first PP1371p25 to the last point - RT Te 0/0/0. I`ve tried to click on trace in menu of each device in the chain, but never see the whole path of the circuit.

2. How can I see that all this connections are related to that circuit I`ve created in the beginning?

Thank you.

[Brian Candler]

Don't use "Circuits" for this.  A Circuit is an external circuit - like a leased line or ISP uplink - and a Circuit Termination is the presentation point from the provider. (It has the option of both A and Z because this might be a site-to-site circuit when both ends of the same circuit are presented to you)

What you need is Cables.

Your Router (RT) has an interface (Te 0/0/0).  You run a Cable to a front port (p5) on the nearest patch panel (PP1376)

I don't know what "CP1" is, but if it's a device you own, and "XC" is its interface, then again you run a Cable from that interface to a front port on next patch panel along, i.e. PP1371 p25.

Then there are further connections between back ports of patch panels, and between front ports of patch panels.

When you've built this, and you go to either endpoint device and scroll down to an interface, you'll see a cable tracing button (looks like three circles linked), and the "Connection" column shows the device and interface at the far end.  That is, it works out for itself that when you trace along all the connected cables, what Device and Interface you find at the far end.  If the connection doesn't reach an Interface then it just says "Not connected".

Don't start the trace in the middle though (i.e. at a patch panel) - you won't see the whole path.  There's a ticket open for that I believe.  Always start at a Device Interface.

Also I see "WDM".  Netbox doesn't do WDM, but you might get by with pretending its a patch panel.

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

CP1 XC in this case is cross-connect. So, this first part - <CP1 XC: 802MMR1 Panel 10 Ports107/108> comes from external source (provider) to our Patch panel (PP1371p25). So for us this connections chain strats from patch panel and ends in Router (RT Te 0/0/0).

Do I understand correctly that I can`t trace the full path if it starts from a patch panel, not from a device?

Also, if I don`t use the Circuits interface, I have no place to put Crcuit ID and cross-connect ID.

Thank you.

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

When I trace the pass from the router i see this:

WDM1358c35 <> WDM1360c35 - everything before this point is missing. I believe that it happens because the cable in this section is not specified. However, in my case I don`t want to specify it. 

[Brian Candler]

On Thursday, 19 September 2019 20:21:36 UTC+1, Svetlana Kostyrko wrote:

Do I understand correctly that I can`t trace the full path if it starts from a patch panel, not from a device?

Correct.  Ticket on github somewhere.

 

Also, if I don`t use the Circuits interface, I have no place to put Crcuit ID and cross-connect ID.

If one end of the cabling/patch panel path is a circuit, then of course connect it to a circuit.  However you said in your original post that you had made a circuit where one end was a patch panel and the other end was your router interface; you can't have both a circuit and a cable plugged into an interface.

But you should be able to do something like this:

[Circuit Term] -- [PP1 front port X] -- [PP1 rear port X] -- [PP2 rear port Y] -- [PP2 front port Y] -- [Device Interface]

And you should be able to trace it from the device interface right up to the circuit termination.  Not tried myself, but e.g. https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox/issues/2691

[Brian Candler]

On Thursday, 19 September 2019 20:25:57 UTC+1, Svetlana Kostyrko wrote:

WDM1358c35 <> WDM1360c35 - everything before this point is missing. I believe that it happens because the cable in this section is not specified. However, in my case I don`t want to specify it. 

Sorry, no idea what you're talking about.  Netbox is not telepathic, it cannot guess where you want cable traces to go.

I did say before that Netbox doesn't support WDM, but you might be able to simulate it as pretending to be patch panels.

[davide Colombo]

Hi, I've made a custom view to do a bidirectional trace starting from patch panels that only shows the end of the trace, let me know if you think that can be useful for your case and I can spend some time to make it 'universal', obviously for the current situation of Svetlana it wouldn't work properly due to some 'errors' in design, but once settled it should work without problems.

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

Where can I find such a screen? Or it`s your custom plugin or something? I`ve created patch panels as devices and it looks like:

Your view is much better.

 

[davide Colombo]

As I said before it's a custom view I've developed some time ago, it simply does a bidirectional  trace for every port of a patch panel and displays the terminations.

The fact is that your patch panel seems still modeled in the wrong way, tipically you have one or more(multiples of two) rear ports, with n positions, so, for example an mtp fiber panel have 2 rear port, each connected to 6 front ports (speaking of duplex connections). If the rear port isn't connected my view wont work properly, and it will display only the front trace (trace starting from front port)

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

Thanks guys. I have finally made it and can see all the connections and connection to the circuit thanks to your help! And sorry for not being clear enough, I am a technical writer, not network specialist, just helping IT department to understand how Netbox works and what they should do to document our company`s network.

[Svetlana Kostyrko]

Hi Davide, could you please share your solution to document circuits that starts from a patch panel? We need it so much (because we have a lot of cases when we just have a cable from provider and actually don`t know where it starts. and it doesn`t matter for us). We will be very grateful. Thanks!

пятница, 20 сентября 2019 г., 3:42:35 UTC-4 пользователь davide Colombo написал:

[davide Colombo]

Here we are, the custom view should be universal and ready, you can faound it here with a setup guide: https://github.com/coloHsq/Netbox_Custom/tree/master/patch_trace

[Xav W]

David, thanks so much for posting this, I think it will really help in my system.

A very noob question though: I can't figure out how to identify the role IDs as I can't see them in URLs or anywhere else. Where can I see which is my "Patch Panel" role ID?