Demo 1 - Nautobot Fundamentals Course - Introducing the Nautobot Web UI¶

This demo provides an introduction and overview of the full Nautobot GUI.

Task 1 - Start the Nautobot GUI and log in.¶

Step 1-1 - Open the Nautobot GUI¶

Open the full Nautobot GUI that uses https on its default port 443. The home page is now displayed.

Note that to the right of all the keywords in the middle of the web page is a lock symbol. Nothing can be selected or edited.

Note also that to the right of the Nautobot logo there are no tabs across the top where commonly one could select various options on the web page.

Step 1-2 - Log in to the Nautobot GUI¶

In the top right corner, you'll find Log in. Click on that and enter the username and password you created when installing this nautobot-lab container within docker.

Step 1-3 - Differences once logged in¶

Note several things:

Where the lock symbol was, you'll now see zeroes.
There are multiple menu options (e.g. Organization, Devices, IPAM, etc.) to the right of the Nautobot logo.
Where it had said Log in in the top right corner, now it shows the logged-in username.

Step 1-4 - Nautobot online documentation¶

Click in the lower right-hand corner of the Nautobot home page on Docs or go directly to https://nautobot.readthedocs.io to find the Nautobot online documentation. We certainly can't cover everything in a Fundamentals course - and things quickly change over time - but this is a great place for you to dig deeper on your own.

Step 1-5 - Information for the user¶

Click on the logged-in username. There are menu options for Profile, Admin, and Log out.

Log out is pretty obvious.
Look under Profile to see more options on the left below User Profile including Profile, Preferences, Change Password, and API Tokens.
For a user with Administrative privileges, there is a middle option titled Admin. Under that, there are sub-options regarding Configuration, Extras (including File proxies and Job results), and Users (including Groups, Permissions, Tokens, and Users. Later when we work with the light-weight nautobot-lab running in a docker container, you will have Administrative privileges and can experiment more.
- Click Config under Configuration, and you'll find Banners using custom HTML (for a company logo, for example), Change Log history retention (by default 90 days), and much more.

Step 1-6 - Version¶

Nautobot version information is in the lower left-hand corner. This can be very important when troubleshooting a fast-moving target like Nautobot where different versions may have different functionality.

Step 1-7 - Search bar¶

The Search Bar is used to find content such as IP addresses (search for 10.0.0.0) or names (search for edge). It isn't for explanations of functions -- see the Nautobot online documentation by clicking Docs on the lower-right side of the Nautobot homepage or at https://nautobot.readthedocs.io.

As you navigate throughout Nautobot, you can click on the top left-hand Nautobot logo to return to the home page.

Notice the menu near the top of the Nautobot home page to the right of the >>> Nautobot logo. You'll see the main tabs named:

Organization
Devices
IPAM (IP Address Management)
Virtualization
Circuits
Power
Secrets
Extensibility
Plugins (more recently in Nautobot referred to as applications or apps)

Click on Organization. Under that, you'll see 5 major sections, each of which have one or more subsections. The major sections (as of Nautobot version 1.2.7, though some could change in the future) include:

Sites
Racks
Tenancy
Tags
Statuses

Step 2-3 - Buttons to the right¶

To the right of many (but not all) of these subsections are two clickable buttons:

Green + sign and
Blue background with a small white arrow pointing to a disk drive icon.

Step 2-4 - Green + button¶

Clicking this button takes you to a web page to add a new item of the type listed in the subsection name (e.g. Sites, Regions, Racks). Click on a green + button and consider the fields listed. When finished, towards the lower right of the body of the web page, click on Cancel.

Also at almost any time you can click on the blue Nautobot logo near the top left of the web page to get back to the Nautobot home page.

Task 3 - Body of Nautobot web page¶

On the Nautobot home page beneath the logo and menu tabs just discussed is the body section. You will quickly see similarities to the menu Section and Subsection titles. Sometimes the values that may appear deeper in the menus are shown in the body.

Step 3-2 - Top right-hand buttons one level deeper¶

Click on the Subsection title named Sites. There may be no data in the Nautobot configuration to show initially. On the top right of this (and equivalent) web pages are several buttons including:

Configure
- Add
Import
Export

Step 3-3 - Configure¶

Click on Configure to see a Table Configuration with names of Columns. If a name is highlighted in grey, it is shown in the corresponding web page. If not highlighted (so typically white), it is not shown on the corresponding web page. The order from top to bottom matches the columns from left to right. Select a name and re-order the columns by clicking on the Move Up or Move Down buttons. If some names are not highlighted, you can Select All. Make sure to Save your choices. You can also click on Reset to return the configuration to the default setting.

Step 3-4 - Add¶

The blue + Add button has the same function as the green + button under the Nautobot menus. Click on several of these to see the similarities for particular data field types.

Step 3-5 - Import¶

NTCU - Skip

Step 3-6 - Export¶

NTCU - Skip

Task 4 - Various Nautobot object web pages¶

Task 4-1 - Nautobot object web pages at the bottom¶

At the top of the Nautobot web page, click on Sites beneath Organization. This applies to many other web pages that list objects.

Once you click on one or more of the boxes on the left, you can use buttons at the bottom for operations such as Edit Selected and Delete Selected.

Task 4-2 - Nautobot object web pages at the bottom and sides¶

At the top of the Nautobot web page, click on Regions beneath Organization. There are square boxes on the left with a Delete Selected button at the bottom. But to the right of any objects on a line are buttons for the Change Log, a yellow pencil icon to Edit, and a red trash icon to Delete the object on that line.

Task 4-3 - Device web page with Add Components¶

At the top of the Nautobot web page, click on Devices beneath the menu item Devices. At the bottom besides Edit Selected and Delete Selected is Add Components. Click on Add Components to see a list of Component Selections including Console Ports, Console Server Ports, Power Ports, Power Outlets, Interfaces, etc.

If you click on Interfaces with no square boxes selected, at the top is the error message No devices were selected.

Select any device by its left-hand square box and (as one example) click Interfaces beneath Add Components. On the left are current Interfaces while on the right are Fields for Interfaces to Add. Regular expressions can be used for Name. Note that Field titles in BOLD are required while others not in bold are optional.