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IP Address Management

This next section will demonstrate how to:

  • Create a Regional Internet Registry
  • Create an Aggregate
  • Create assignable IP addresses
  • Assign an IP address to an Interface on a Device

These type of operations fall under an umbrella called IP Address Management (IPAM). The Nautobot documentation IPAM section has more detail on IPAM and each operation.

Creating a Regional Internet Registry (RIR)

A RIR allocates globally-routeable IP address space. There are five top-level RIRs, each responsible for a particular section of the globe. Nautobot also considers RFCs 1918 and 6589 to be RIR-like because they allocate private IP space.

Nautobot requires any IP allocation be attributed to a RIR.

To create a RIR:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level navigation menu
  2. Find RIRs and click on the +; this takes you to the Add a new RIR form
  3. Specify the RIR Name
  4. The Slug will auto-populate based on the Name field, but this default can be manually overwritten
  5. There is a checkbox to flag Private (internal use) only
  6. Click on the Create button

Add RIR

Creating an Aggregate

An aggregate is a consolidated allocation of IP address space, whether it is public or private. An aggregate must map back to a RIR that has allocated the space.

To create an Aggregate:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level navigation menu
  2. Find Aggregates and click on the +; this takes you to the Add a new aggregate form
  3. Specify the Prefix in a prefix/mask format
  4. Select a RIR from the drop-down selector
  5. Click the Create button

Add aggregate

You will then be taken to the Aggregates main page, where you will see the Aggregate you just created.

View aggregates

Creating a Prefix

A Prefix is an IPv4 or IPv6 network and mask expressed in CIDR notation (e.g. 192.0.2.0/24). Prefixes are automatically organized by their parent Aggregates. Additionally, each Prefix can be assigned to a particular Site and virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instance.

To create a prefix:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level navigation menu
  2. Look for Prefixes and click on the +
    • This will take you to the Add a new prefix form
  3. Populate the Prefix in CIDR notation
  4. Select a Status from the drop-down selector
  5. If all addresses in the Prefix are usable, check the Is a pool flag
  6. Click on the Create button (not shown)

Add prefix

Verifying a Prefix in an Aggregate

To view the Prefixes in an Aggregate:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level navigation menu
  2. Click on Aggregates to go to the Aggregates main page
  3. Find the Aggregate you are interested in and click on it
  4. On the main page for the specific Aggregate, look for a specific Prefix (10.10.10.0/24 in this example)

Note

Nautobot will break an Aggregate into the highest-level child Prefixes to carve out user-defined Prefixes

View aggregates

Creating IP Addresses

To create an IP address:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level navigation menu
  2. Find IP Addresses and click on the +
    • This will take you to the Add a new IP address form
  3. In this example, we are going to create multiple individual addresses, so click on the Bulk Create tab
  4. Populate an Address pattern
    • This example uses 10.10.10.[0-1,2-3,6-7]/31 to create 3 non-contiguous /31's
    • The specified mask should be exactly as would be configured on the Device's Interface
  5. Select Active for Status from the drop-down selector
  6. Click on the Create button

Add IP address

Assigning IP Addresses

To assign an IP Address to a specific Device and Interface:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level navigation menu
  2. Click on IP Addresses to go to the main IP Addresses page
  3. Find the IP address you wish to assign to an Interface and click on it
  4. On the main page for the Address, click on the Edit button to go to the Editing IP address page Assign IP address 1

Assign IP address 2

Once on the Editing IP address page:

  1. Select a Device from the drop-down selector
  2. Select an Interface on the Device
  3. Click on the Update button
    • This will take you back to the main page for the IP Address, where you will see the assignment shown as device (interface)

Assign IP address 3

Finding an IP Address for an Interface

  1. Click on Devices on the top-level navigation menu
  2. Click on Devices to go to the main page for Devices
  3. Search for the Device you are interested in (edge2.van1 in this example) and click on the link to go to the main page for the Device
  4. Go to the Interfaces tab and look for the row with the Interface you are interested in; find the IP Address(es) in the IP Addresses column in the row

Verify IP address

Finding IP Addresses in a Prefix

To find information on a particular Prefix:

  1. Click on IPAM in the top-level drop-down menu
  2. Click on Prefixes to get to the Prefixes main page
  3. Find the Prefix you are interested in and click on the link
  4. To view the available and allocated IP Addresses, click on the IP Addresses tab

Verify prefix 1

Verify prefix 2