Get Version of Installed NetBox Through API

[CSimpiFoN]

Environment

• Python version: 3.6.9
• NetBox version: 2.8.8

Proposed Functionality

API endpoint to get the currently installed version

Use Case

• Be able to make deployment automation to decide if the latest version is already installed
• Be able to make to create new version check automation and alerting if new version is available

Database Changes

N/A

External Dependencies

N/A

[jeremystretch]

I should note that the API version is passed as the API-Version HTTP header value in every response, however this does not convey the full NetBox version. (For example, the API version for NetBox v2.8.7 is 2.8.)

Does it make sense to create an endpoint specifically for this? If we go that route, I imagine there's probably other information we'd want to return as well; maybe a status endpoint or something to that effect?

Another option would be to replicate/replace the API-Version header with e.g. NetBox-Version and include it with every response. This could easily supersede the API version header (since it contains the same information), but that would be a fairly disruptive change for existing clients so we'd need to support both in parallel for some time.

[sdktr]

The header in API -calls is mostly relevant to instruct clients which version to use while rendering the output, right? Assuming there will be breaking API changes only between major release a full version would be redundant?

Maybe a separate 'environment' endpoint is the cleanest option. Besides the netbox version it could expose detailed version info of dependencies that might end up being inspected on startup as well (#4933)? There's the upgrade notification (#738) that fits into this type of information as well?

[CSimpiFoN]

A status endpoint sounds nice that we can call for readiness/liveness too

[jeremystretch]

Marking this as tentatively accepted with the understanding that the implementation will take the form of a new "status" REST API endpoint, containing at minimum the running NetBox and Python versions. We may opt to add additional context such as installed dependencies, plugins, etc. but further consideration is needed.