Netbox Upgrade Play-by-play

I just upgraded my Netbox server from v2.7.6 to v3.4.8. This is just a record of what I did in case anyone want to know how I did it.

Environment

  • The source v2.7.6 server is an Ubuntu 18.04 VM. Yes, both are very old.

  • The destination v3.4.8 server is an Ubuntu 20.04 VM.

  • We have no media, scripts, or reports in Netbox.

  • I’m running Virtualbox on my laptop to do the data migrations.

Adventures in Upgrading Netbox

I’ve been using Netbox for a while now, and, frankly, I can’t live without it. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a Source of Truth for your network automation tasks started by Jeremy Stretch. I use it to document my networks (hardware inventory, subnets, physical connections, etc.), which provides my automation tasks a place to pull and push all sorts of information like management IPs, rack locations, power connections, network drops…the list goes on. In better words, your automation tools can ask Netbox what the state of your network is, and send it an update if that tool discovers something different. There are plenty of better places to discuss the benefits of a Souce of Truth, so just do the Googles for it.