What is Reddit's opinion of RackTables?

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If your team can't be trusted to keep a simple spreadsheet updated, then there is no point in looking for an alternative solution. Diligence is required for good record keeping regardless of how those records are stored.

That said, http://racktables.org/

We have been using RackTables for a while in our environment and it has gotten the job done.If you have access to throw up a web app on an AMP stack it is a pretty decent free and easy solution.

If you have different physical locations and want even more cool features there is also RackSmith that is also pretty good and free as well.

Rather than use Visio or the likes for this sort of thing, I much prefer RackTables.. One of its features is port linking - in other words, I can create a switch object and a patch panel object, and link patch port 23 to switch port 14. When I view the switch object, it shows me which patch panel port, and vice versa. I find it's much easier to identify and manage port relationships versus dozens of lines on a drawing.

http://racktables.org/ ?

Edit: Did you measure how much wattage that equipment pulls and then added a 4K APC or were you going for the longest run time you could fit in there?

Don't have a ton of DC under my management so I get away with Visio + a spreadsheet.

But I am going to point you at http://racktables.org/ anyhow. It's on my list of I will use this if I ever get enough to justify the overhead.

Not sure if you tried/looked at Device42. It is a bit pricey, specially since we migrated from open source tools, but has worked well for us.

Other tool to look at - Racktables

What about using something like racktables ?

Obviously the usefulness depends on your scale (too small and you might as well just use excel, too big and you need something a hell of a lot more automatic)

Disclaimer: I am one of the engineers behind following.

Device42 can do that automatically. It can discover your servers along with software installed and services running on it. It is a commercial solution.

If you are looking to go opensource route - somebody mentioned racktables already.

If you have budget, you should check out Device42. It is really comprehensive and we love it.

If looking for open source, racktables is decent after you get used to it.

I've always labeled both ends with wire markers of some sort. You can buy pre-made barcode labels if the environment is very large, but mostly I just get sticker labels, place the same number/letter combination on each end. I use RackTables with the Link Management Plugin to keep track of all my cables, cable runs, patch panels and terminations.

We use and love Device42. Pretty comprehensive, good support and constantly improving.

If you are looking at free and open source side of things, racktables is the way to go.

http://racktables.org/

Works well for me. Fair enough it is manual but once setup easy to maintain. You can also do a "live PTR" to confirm the devices are correct (assuming you have reverse dns setup OK)

EDIT: We really use it for IP addressing first then after that rack location for kit.

EDIT EDIT: Live demo - http://demo.racktables.org/index.php?page=ipv4space

username admin, pass admin

May have to look into this. I've been using a Mediawiki with Visualeditor and some table formatting there (at least it's reachable from anywhere with a browser) but there's obviously no automation.

http://racktables.org/ also has some IP management built in, but never managed to fully take the time to transition....

http://racktables.org/

You're welcome.

Alternatively, a Mediawiki works well, you can do tables there pretty easily. Especially now with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor

However, passwords and sensitive data should be stored in something like a http://keepass.info database. Store it on some kind of versioning system to make sure you can always revert to an earlier version if something goes wrong (in addition to backups of the file itself.)

For any and all of this it's worth thinking beforehand about where it lives/runs. If it's on the stuff you're documenting and the stuff breaks, you won't have your documentation. So make sure you have backups and possibly run it on hardware other than what it documents.

A few suggestions:
- Gollum, similar to dokuwiki allows for content in raw text files, and basic search. It is the wiki engine behind GitHub's and GitLab's wiki implementations, so production ready. I've been using it for a few weeks and really like the minimal interface. Supports Org-Mode, WikiText, and Markdown, so I can write docs in whatever is easier for the task at hand.
- RackTables, is what I use at work, and have an instance running at home for planning. Allows you to visualize device placement, IP addressing space, and has fields for common info for servers, i.e., serial, OS, hypervisor version, etc.

RackTables Can track all that information, from FQDN and IP addresses to asset tags and support contract expiration dates, even what label is on the object.

The one thing is does not do is allow you to place items on a map, it uses racks instead, so you place something on a rack then you can click on that object in a rack to see its' info. It seems to be more tuned to data center type setups but it does support multiple locations.

It requires a little work to get it setup just right but it is very flexible and you can customize the types of devices and what info each device needs.

Is this your blog? Eitherway I have been reading it for 2 hours give or take.

I am reading on your "Managing Inventory" entry. You seem to be a fan of spreadsheets. Which is fine. I'm just a visual type of person. I would like to suggest some software I ran into. I am finding it to be invaluable as I progress in it's trial run.

Racktables

This is not a solution to your question, but I figured I would mention RackTables.

Unfortunately due to Source Forge being a collective of idiots, the project page is not available. But, check out RackTables - there is a fairly strong following, so I assume there are alternative ways to download the project. It generates a graphical representation of your data center (based on rules you establish). It sounds as though you have some solid practices in place already, and with some coordination, I believe racktables would integrate fairly well and provide some benefit in the visual aspect and reporting capability.

Definitely still a work in progress as I just barely pushed the first commit tonight..

Its closely modeled after racktables but will look nicer, be mobile friendly, and have a full blown real-time API available.

I'll be using this in my homelab and most likely will be able to at some point calculate various things like power consumption for the rack (based on upsmon) and tons of other goodies once data starts getting put in.

Its going to be open source, feel free to submit PRs and contribute as you feel comfortable. Its built on sails.js, and MySQL.

The idea is to have "Items" be dynamic and allow you to enter in fields, and whether they're required or not.. it should provide an ability to add any type of "item" you classify.. servers, switches, patch panels, pdu's..

I use http://racktables.org/ to manually track our small 5 server 2 switch 25 workstation network.

I've half-heartedly used Spiceworks, but for our extremely small size I do the documentation manually in racktables with assistance from NetDisco and nmap.

Depending on what information you are tracking, I would look at:
RackTables

...since you are considering your options and likely will have to rework a portion of it, I think it is worth considering as an add-on to use the data you are tracking.

It's hard to find an inventory system to works with all requirements in every environment. I'm a big fan of RackTables (http://racktables.org/) It's opensource, accessed via browser, supports ldap authentication and is fairly flexible.

> What is racktables exactly though?

http://racktables.org/demo.php

RackTables is an inventory documentation tool that helps you keep track of exactly what devices are installed in exactly what cabinet, and what rack position. Who owns each device, who installed it, where is it plugged in, what service contract is it covered by, what are the contact info or client-ID for the device, and so much more.

Sample Image

Look at that image.

Your data center is segmented off into cages. You have I don't know, 400 cabinets segmented into 60 cages of different sizes.
Each cabinet can have anywhere from 5 to 45 servers or devices in it.

400 cabinets @ 5 servers each == 2,000 servers (or devices) minimum.
400 cabinets @ 45 servers each == 18,000 servers (or devices) maximum.

Customer from Acme Insurance calls and asks you to hit the power button on server named "AI-APP-0045-B".
Customer has no idea what Cabinet ID or Cage ID their stuff is installed in.

So, what do you do?

Your first thought is to search RackTables, find the server and reboot it.
But that would be incorrect.

Your first thought is to confirm the caller is really from Acme Insurance.
Your customer data base might have a list of known phone numbers, or secret words or something.
Or your operational policy might be to never, ever touch any single physical device that isn't in actual flames without a ticket.

Only a real employee from Acme Insurance would have a login to your ticketing system that is associated to the Acme customer account.

Once you have a valid ticket from a proper, authorized client of Acme Insurance you can go ahead and use RackTables to find the magic server and hit the power button.

Edited for typo.

http://racktables.org/

This tracks all IPs, physical rack use, ports and everything. we are implenting this at work. But for now..we are still on an excel spreadsheet. Racktables is also free.

There are two problems here. First off there is bad documentation. Labeling every wire and documenting everything in a spreadsheet or even better RackTables. This may take some time of cable pulling and/or switch mac table digging.

The second problem is the spaghetti. It does not look visually pleasing and interfere with the airflow. There is no way out of this but to unplug everything and replug everything properly.

http://racktables.org/

OpenSource, but very manual.

What you are asking for - automagic creation of detailed network documentation - is extremely complex.

Most people in your shoes fire up Visio and start physically tracing cables to see what is plugged in where.

There are some other Layer-2/Layer-3 automatic mapping tools out there - Solarwinds has one, for example. But I'd be surprised to find a free one.

If you have an end-of-row switch, and that row is 16 cabinets long, then a link from cab 16 to cab 1 strung over the top of the cabinets is going to be very hard to run in the first instance, and then difficult to trace afterwards if there are any issues. Not to mention cabling can get expensive, especially if a company only uses pre-crimped Cat6 certified-for-10GBASE-T STP for example (which is quite common in a lot of orgs). A 15M length of that is not going to be cheap.

It also ties well into a system like RackTables, for managing data centres as they grow: http://racktables.org

It's all about scale! Good luck with your networking endeavours and always feel free to ask questions here.

There are lots of IP management tools out there which can help you visualize IP address allocations. Personally I just use the IP management built into Racktables.

Then if you have a Visio license, use that for doing your actual physical/logical topologies.

Not sure if interested in commercial solution : you can easily achieve all this with Device42. With custom keys and APIs, you can pretty much store and retrieve anything.

For Open source side of things, I agree with other posters here about racktables - has an active community and if you know a bit of php - easy to extend.

Dear god I hope you're not using spreadsheets for IP management anymore!

Even if you don't use any other features, you should look into RackTables (as an example of a free solution) for IP network / allocation management.

This is a recurring question.

• Infoblox is awesome but pricey, does IPAM as part of DHCP and DNS. There is a free if limited version.
• ipplan is the standard open source tool but it's originally targeted towards ISP and it's a bit dated (php4-based, ugly interface IMHO).
• racktables is a more modern open source tool but it does more than just IPAM as its name implies (rack management, cabling).

If you can script, it's not that hard to roll out your own. Personally, I'm setting up Infoblox next week.