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IP Address Management

This next section will demonstrate how to:

  • Create a Regional Internet Registry
  • Create a Prefix
  • 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).

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 left sidebar menu
  2. Find RIRs and click on the +; this takes you to the Add a new RIR form
  3. Specify the RIR Name
  4. There is a checkbox to flag Private (internal use) only
  5. Click on the Create button

Add RIR

Creating a Prefix

A Prefix is an IPv4 or IPv6 network and mask expressed in CIDR notation (e.g. 192.0.2.0/24). Each Prefix can be assigned to a particular Location, an RIR and virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instance.

To create a prefix:

  1. Click on IPAM in the left sidebar 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. If all addresses in the Prefix are usable, change the Type to "Pool"
  5. Select a Status from the drop-down selector
  6. Optionally select a RIR from the drop-down selector
  7. Click on the Create button (not shown)

Add prefix

Creating IP Addresses

To create an IP address:

  1. Click on IPAM in the left side 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 Global for Namespace from the drop-down selector
  6. Select Host for Type from the drop-down selector
  7. Select Active for Status from the drop-down selector
  8. 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 Devices in the left side navigation menu
  2. Click on Devices to go to the main page for Devices
  3. Find the Device whose Interface you wish to associate to an IP Address and click on it
  4. Go to the Interfaces tab and look for the row with the Interface you are interested in
  5. Click on the edit button for the Interface (a pencil icon)

Assign IP address 1

Assign IP address 2

Once on the Editing Interface page:

  1. Select an IP Address from the drop-down selector
  2. Click on the Update button
    • This will take you back to the Interfaces page for the Device, where you will see the assignment shown under the IP Addresses column

Assign IP address 3

Finding an IP Address for an Interface

  1. Click on Devices in the left side navigation menu
  2. Click on Devices to go to the main page for Devices
  3. Search for the Device you are interested in (ams01-edge-01 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 left side navigation 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