I’m delighted to deliver the news that the NetBox Plugin Bounty Program has awarded another payout for a job well done. Developer Alex Gittings claimed a bounty from NetBox Labs after authoring, releasing, and submitting for review the Reorder Rack plugin. The plugin is now available via GitHub and PyPI, and is listed in the official plugins catalog alongside other top NetBox plugins. As a certified plugin, it also qualifies for commercial support when installed in NetBox Cloud or NetBox Enterprise at a qualified tier.
The Reorder Rack plugin provides a fantastic time-saving feature in the form of a drag-and drop workflow for reordering the devices in a rack. Prior to the plugin’s availability, users wishing to move devices within a rack could specify a new position for each device using the device editing functionality of core NetBox. Alex’s work has transformed this common, repetitive operation into an intuitive, efficient experience centered around the rack object.
Alex is the second plugin creator to claim a bounty under this program, which NetBox Labs established in 2023. We’ll be opening up a number of new bounties soon as we continue to invest in independent plugin developers. A vibrant ecosystem of plugins is one of the engines propelling NetBox to become the de-facto source of truth for practitioners building, documenting, and automating the next generation of modern networks. It’s part of our big-tent philosophy for the whole NetBox ecosystem.
Since awarding the first plugin bounty to Tony Nealon for his floorplan plugin, NetBox Labs also introduced the plugin certification program and the plugin catalog. These efforts enable users to locate, install, and confidently rely on plugins to extend the functionality of their NetBox installations. We’re baking both certification and catalog listing right into the terms of the Plugin Bounty program going forward.
As of this writing, Alex is taking a well-deserved holiday, but I’ve penciled him in to give a first-hand presentation about his latest creation on an upcoming NetBox community meetup call. In the meantime, I hope many of you will take a moment to drop Alex a congratulatory DM on NetDev Slack.
