Check for drift
Change a device in NetBox by hand, have Designs find the drift, and put it back.
Drift is NetBox changing under a deployment: someone edits a field the design sets, or deletes an object it created. Designs finds it by planning the deployment again, with the design and variables it was applied with. A deployment that matches its design plans to nothing, so anything the plan finds is drift.
Make some
In NetBox, open device R2-COMPUTE-01 and change its Status from Active to Planned. Save it.
Find it
- Go to Deployments and open
rack-r2. - Select Check drift. It plans the deployment again in the background and stays on the page.
It says Drifted, with one change. Select Review: the plan has 1 Update, on R2-COMPUTE-01, showing the field, the value NetBox has now, Planned, and the value the design sets, Active.
Only what the design declares counts. Change a field the design doesn't set, such as the device's Comments, and check again: still the one update, the status; the comment isn't in it. A field the design leaves out is never reported as drift and never written, so you can keep notes in NetBox on objects a design manages.
Put it back
Apply the plan. The device is Active again. Check drift once more: in sync.
Drift and design edits look the same to a plan
Check drift compares NetBox with the version of the design the deployment applied, and the designs it's built from at the versions they resolved to then, so editing a design in the catalogue doesn't show up as drift: the Deployments page says the design has changed, and that is a different thing. rack-r1 still says the server design changed underneath it, and its drift check is in sync all the same. A plan you make yourself with a newer version shows the design's changes and NetBox's together, worded the same, which is why chapter 7 put the rack design back before this one.
The sessions under a deployment are its rounds of planning. Replan plans an open session again with the same variables; Discard plan closes one you don't need, and nothing in NetBox changes. Only a session's newest plan can be applied.
Next, several designs as one: a second site, with its rack, under one name.