Enable treating IP ranges as fully populated

[nem1989]

NetBox version

v3.2.6

Feature type

New functionality

Proposed functionality

Improve IP ranges functionality by implementing these features:

• An option to display particular IP ranges in IP address lists.
• An option to mark an IP range as restricted/reserved/fully utilized. IP addresses within such ranges will not show up as available in any IP lists.

Use case

This would be extremely useful for DHCP ranges for instance. Right now nothing stops netbox users from using "free" IP addresses reserved for particular IP ranges.

Example: I have an IP range defined which describes DHCP range in one of my subnets, but when browsing IP address lists nothing indicates that these addresses are reserved, thus they can be assigned to any device or VM leading to an IP conflict.

There is a workaround: bulk create IP addresses for the whole range and set a corresponding role for them all. But in this scenario users have to manually match ranges and IP addresses in case of range changes and accidents may happen due to human factor. Also a lot of unnecessary information is stored in the database and displayed in IP lists especially for large IPv6 prefixes where there can be thousands of reserved addresses in one prefix.

With my proposal implemented one could mark an IP range as reserved and users would not be allowed to allocate addresses from reserved ranges anymore or atleast will be notified that these addresses are reserved. It would also decrease amount of excessive information in IP lists, dramatically in some cases.

These features are optional and will not break existing databases.

Database changes

Some new boolean fields for IP range description will be needed to implement this.

External dependencies

No response

[jeremystretch]

An option to display particular IP ranges in IP address lists.

Can you elaborate on this? How do you anticipate this working? What would the UI look like with this change in place?

An option to mark an IP range as restricted/reserved/fully utilized

This has already been captured in #7947.

[nem1989]

An option to display particular IP ranges in IP address lists.

Can you elaborate on this? How do you anticipate this working? What would the UI look like with this change in place?

An option to mark an IP range as restricted/reserved/fully utilized

This has already been captured in #7947.

I'm no UI designer but from my viewpoint in IP lists (doesn't matter if it is in prefix, filter or just all IPs list) there could be placeholders for IP ranges just like there are now for available ranges.

Like this:
10.177.100.1
10.177.100.2
100 IPs available (green)
100 IPs reserved (with reserved IP range Role in Role column) (yellow/red/configurable for each IP range?)
10.177.100.203
...

Wether to show IP range in lists or not could be configured with either a checkbox or dropdown list inside IP range edit menu. With dropdown this functionality can be extended with reasons why range is reserved/utilized (if it is just utilized or intended to be used for a special purpose).

If there is an IP address within range it should be showed too.

Like this:
10.177.100.1
10.177.100.2
100 IPs available
49 IPs reserved
10.177.100.151
50 IPs reserved
10.177.100.203

Reserved ranges should be treated like available on-click - user can assign an IP from reserved range by clicking on it's placeholder in the list. But there should be some kind of a prompt when new IP is on reserved range.
Like:
"This IP is reserved, are you sure?" or a red/yellow/contrast informational note in IP edit menu saying that this IP is reserved so that reserved IPs could be used only on purpose and not accidentally.

There also could be a checkbox in IP range edit menu toggling if IP range is displayed in IP lists or not. Defaults to not so that nothing is changed for users not needing this functionality.

[CharlesSerrett]

This may increase the scope of the issue but I'd like to be able to assign DHCP and SLACC to IP ranges and then see this in the IP addresses view.

[github-actions]

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[elipsion]

I'm unsure about the maintainers' opinion about this feature, since the tag removal on Aug. 8. The flowchart on feature intake seems to have lost track on "In scope for core?"

In any case, we also see a huge potential in this. Right now we have quite vast (/16 and larger) networks containing different DHCP scopes together with blocks of static assignments. It's a bit unwieldy to bulk create 10k addresses with status DHCP to have the usage calculator work and make sure nobody accidentally places a static IP in the DHCP scope.

[fercalbla]

I'm unsure about the maintainers' opinion about this feature, since the tag removal on Aug. 8. The flowchart on feature intake seems to have lost track on "In scope for core?"

In any case, we also see a huge potential in this. Right now we have quite vast (/16 and larger) networks containing different DHCP scopes together with blocks of static assignments. It's a bit unwieldy to bulk create 10k addresses with status DHCP to have the usage calculator work and make sure nobody accidentally places a static IP in the DHCP scope.

Same opinion here, we have lot of ranges for DHCP and this will be a very good feature to avoid people assigning these IPs

[dutchman80]

This may increase the scope of the issue but I'd like to be able to assign DHCP and SLACC to IP ranges and then see this in the IP addresses view.

Or at least not show as "Available" in the IP Addresses tab of the Prefix view, like it does now