Allow a service to have multiple ports

[dfsocha]

Issue type
[x] Feature request
[ ] Bug report
[ ] Documentation

Environment
Server: Ubuntu 16.04.01 LTS
Python version: 2.7.12
NetBox version: 2.3.3

Description

Feature request for the modification of how ports for services are displayed on devices. The request would be to have the ports for the relevant service display similar to how IP addresses are displayed under interfaces.

In addition, it would be useful to be able to add port ranges to a service (e.g. TCP Port 35200-35220), as opposed to adding each port individually. This could be displayed similar to how IP addresses are displayed in the network interfaces section for a device. This would also clean up the display for services if a service has a wide range of ports that it uses.

This is similar to what was completed for IP addresses under ticket 878.

The primary value in this request would be to clean up the display of services on devices, which should in turn improve the readability and usability of that section.

I would expect that one or two additional tables would need to be created, to track the linkage between a service on a device, and the ports that that service uses.

I do not believe that any additional libraries would be needed.

Sample of Proposed Layout of Screen

[jeremystretch]

The purpose of the service model in NetBox is to document specific services running a host that might be of interest for management purposes. This feels like it's extending the scope of the model to serve other functions. For example, why would you need to document the ports used for "communication from Altaro Hyper-V Host Agents for Boot From Backup" in NetBox?

[jeremystretch]

Closing due to lack of activity.

[dfsocha]

Jeremy,

I apologize for my horrific delay on this one. I was away on military training for an extended period of time this summer and did not see the responses till it was to late.

I am finally able to get back into finalizing our NetBox implementation at my work. I was hoping that we could reopen this issue.

My thinking on this is being able to use NetBox as our source of truth for configuration data and setup. I understand that this will probably result in having to employ custom fields heavily. For services specifically, It is nice to be able to view them at the device level, and it would reduce the data entry and display by having a parent / child relationship between services, and the ports that they run on.

An example would be the image I posted in the initial feature request. In that image, it takes up 4 lines to represent the services on that hypervisor. currently, it is taking up 40 lines or so.

Thank you,

David

[DanSheps]

What is the thought of using DJango's model inheritance to provision "services".

Base Model: Service
Extended Models: ServicePort, ServicePortRange, ServicePortGroup

Alternatively, using content types and then break out Port, Port range, and Service Group into separate models. Thoughts?

I am actually leaning towards CT's and Generic relations right now.

[dfsocha]

Dan,

I am not sure if the comment was intended for me or Jeremy. If for me, I am not sure if I can be much help on the backend of this, as I know nothing about python. I would love to see this implemented, and will give whatever help that I can. I just know that we aren't really using the services portion of netbox at this time due to services that might span a wide variety of port ranges. The way that it seems implemented currently probably works great if you have one or two services on a machine that each use one port, but becomes more cumbersome when you have multiple ports to one service.

Thanks,

David

[jeremystretch]

The most efficient way to approach this is probably to convert the current port IntegerField to an ArrayField capable of holding multiple integer values. We can enable range expansion within the UI form so that e.g. 100-104 expands to the array [100, 101, 102, 103, 104].