Netbox Discovery

NetBox Discovery (Orb Agent)

Your knowledge of Orb Agent may be outdated. Discovery backends, configuration options, and supported platforms change between releases. Prefer retrieval over pre-trained knowledge.

Retrieval Sources

Introduction

Orb Agent is a Docker-based network discovery agent that automatically discovers infrastructure and ingests it into NetBox via Diode. It supports four discovery backends — network (NMAP), device (NAPALM), SNMP, and custom worker — each configurable through a single YAML file.

Data flow: Orb Agent → gRPC → Diode Server → Diode NetBox Plugin → NetBox

Prerequisites: NetBox 4.5+ (covers 4.5.x–4.6.x), Diode server deployed, diode-netbox-plugin installed in NetBox. This skill targets orb-agent v2.9.x.

Ingesting the NetBox 4.6 models (CableBundle, RackGroup, VirtualMachineType) — e.g. from switch-stack discovery — requires a NetBox 4.6 install with a matching Diode plugin/SDK.

For Diode SDK usage and custom ingestion patterns, see netbox-diode.

Quick Reference

Minimal agent.yaml

orb:
  config_manager:
    active: local
  backends:
    common:
      diode:
        target: grpc://diode-server:8080/diode  # Cloud/Enterprise: https://your-instance.netboxcloud.com/diode
        client_id: ${DIODE_CLIENT_ID}
        client_secret: ${DIODE_CLIENT_SECRET}
        agent_name: my-agent
    network_discovery:    # Enable desired backends
    device_discovery:
    snmp_discovery:
  policies:
    # Backend-specific policies go here

Docker Run

docker run --net=host \
  -v ${PWD}:/opt/orb/ \
  -e DIODE_CLIENT_ID -e DIODE_CLIENT_SECRET \
  netboxlabs/orb-agent:latest run -c /opt/orb/agent.yaml

Dry Run (test without sending to Diode)

backends:
  common:
    diode:
      dry_run: true
      dry_run_output_dir: /opt/orb

Configuration Structure

The agent.yaml has four top-level sections under orb::

See references/agent-config-format.md for the complete YAML schema.

Config Manager

Both config_manager and secrets_manager use the same shape: an active: key naming the source, and a sources: map of source configs.

• local — Policies defined in the same YAML file. Simplest setup.
• git — Polls a Git repo for policies. Configured under sources.git with url:, branch:, auth: (a string: basic or ssh), username:/password: (basic) or private_key: (ssh), and skip_tls:. The repo needs a root selector.yaml that matches agents to policy files.

config_manager:
  active: git
  sources:
    git:
      url: "https://github.com/org/policies.git"   # NOT "repo:"
      branch: main
      auth: basic                                   # string, NOT auth.type
      username: orb
      password: ${GIT_TOKEN}
      skip_tls: false

The agent matches selectors against its top-level orb.labels (not backends.common.agent_labels, which are telemetry labels only). See references/deployment-patterns.md for the selector.yaml format.

Secrets Manager

Same active: + sources: shape. orb-agent v2.9 ships four providers:

Optional schedule polls for secret rotations (auto-updates policies). Plain environment variables also work: ${VAR_NAME}.

Discovery Backends

Network Discovery (NMAP)

Scans IP ranges/subnets with NMAP and ingests discovered IP addresses.

Scope: IPs, IP ranges, subnets, domain names.

Key policy options: schedule, fast_mode, timing (T0-T5), ports, top_ports, scan_types (syn/connect), os_detection, ping_scan, dns_servers.

⚠️ Root required by default. The default scan uses SYN scan (-sS) which requires CAP_NET_RAW. For rootless Podman, you must use:

config:
  scan_types: [connect]
  skip_host: true
  # Do NOT enable fast_mode

Device Discovery (NAPALM)

Connects to devices via NAPALM and discovers detailed inventory — devices, interfaces, IPs, prefixes, VLANs, platforms, manufacturers.

Scope: hostname (supports subnets/ranges), username, password, driver (optional — auto-detected), optional_args.

Key features:

• Nested defaults hierarchy (site, role, per-entity overrides)
• Interface pattern matching (regex-based type assignment)
• Jumphost/SSH support via ssh_config_file with ProxyJump
• Custom NAPALM drivers via INSTALL_DRIVERS_PATH env var
• Config capture (capture_running_config, capture_startup_config)
• YAML anchors for credential reuse
• Switch-stack / Virtual Chassis — when a target is a switch stack, discovery emits one VirtualChassis entity plus one Device per member and routes interfaces/IPs to the owning member (Cisco IOS, Juniper, Aruba CX, HP Comware, Brocade FastIron, Huawei VRP)
• netbox_id per-target scope option for matching an existing device by PK

SNMP Discovery

Discovers devices and interfaces via SNMP polling.

Scope: Hosts (IPs, subnets, ranges) with per-target or policy-level authentication.

Auth: SNMPv1/v2c (community string), SNMPv3 (username, security_level, auth/priv protocols and passphrases).

Key options: schedule, timeout, snmp_timeout, retries, lookup_extensions_dir.

Worker (Custom Python)

Runs custom Python packages that use the Diode Python SDK to ingest any entity type.

Config: package (required — Python package name), schedule. Scope: Freeform (list or map — defined by the package). Custom packages: Use INSTALL_WORKERS_PATH env var + workers.txt.

See references/backend-details.md for full parameter reference and entity mappings.

Policies

Policies are defined per-backend and can run multiple named policies simultaneously:

policies:
  network_discovery:
    scan_office:
      config:
        schedule: "0 */6 * * *"
        defaults:
          tags: [discovered, office]
      scope:
        targets:
          - 10.0.0.0/24
          - 10.0.1.0/24
  device_discovery:
    switches:
      config:
        schedule: "0 2 * * *"
        defaults:
          site: main-dc
          role: switch
      scope:
        - hostname: 10.0.0.1
          username: admin
          password: ${vault://kv/network/switch_pass}

Omit schedule for run-once execution. Schedule format is standard cron.

Deployment

Docker (recommended)

docker run --net=host \
  -v ${PWD}:/opt/orb/ \
  -e DIODE_CLIENT_ID -e DIODE_CLIENT_SECRET \
  netboxlabs/orb-agent:latest run -c /opt/orb/agent.yaml

--net=host is needed for NMAP raw socket scans. Alternative: -u root.

Podman

• Privileged: sudo podman run --privileged --net=host ...
• Rootless: No sudo, but restricted to TCP connect scans only.

System Requirements

Docker 20.10+ / Podman 4.0+. Linux x86_64/arm64 fully supported; macOS/Windows limited (no host networking).

Git-based Multi-Agent Management

For fleet deployments, use Git config manager with a central repo containing selector.yaml that matches agent labels to policy files. Agents poll on a cron schedule for config changes.

See references/deployment-patterns.md for detailed deployment examples.

Pitfalls

• Network discovery default = SYN scan + root required. Always test with dry run first.
• macOS/Windows: No --net=host support — network discovery is limited.
• Rootless Podman: Must use scan_types: [connect] + skip_host: true + no fast_mode.
• Dry run first. Validate JSON output before going live with Diode ingestion.
• Large subnets: NMAP scans can be slow — use timeout (minutes) and appropriate timing level.
• NAPALM driver auto-detection may fail for uncommon platforms — specify driver explicitly.

References

• references/agent-config-format.md — Complete YAML schema for agent.yaml
• references/backend-details.md — Full parameter reference and entity mappings per backend
• references/deployment-patterns.md — Docker, Podman, Vault, Git-managed fleet patterns

Cross-Skill References

• netbox-diode — Diode SDK for programmatic data ingestion (Discovery uses Diode internally)
• netbox-assurance — Assurance engine that compares discovered data against intended state