Cisco Nexus Dashboard Integration

Overview

The Cisco Nexus Dashboard integration discovers NX-OS fabric inventory from Cisco Nexus Dashboard and ingests it into NetBox via the Diode SDK. It reads the unified Manage API (/api/v1/manage/) introduced in Nexus Dashboard 4.x, walks each fabric's switches, interfaces, VRFs, and overlay networks, and maps them to NetBox objects. Discovered data is staged as deviations in NetBox Assurance, where you review and apply changes before they are written to NetBox. This gives you visibility and control over what enters your source of truth, without manual data entry.

Run the integration on a schedule to continuously surface operational drift. When switches, models, software versions, interfaces, VRFs, or overlay networks change in the fabric, Assurance highlights exactly what has diverged from NetBox so you can act on it deliberately rather than finding discrepancies later.

Data flows one way only: from Nexus Dashboard into NetBox. Nothing is written back to Nexus Dashboard or to the fabric.

What Gets Synchronized

• Sites - one NetBox site per Nexus Dashboard fabric
• Devices - fabric switches, with hardware model, serial number, NX-OS software version, role, and primary management IP
• Device Types - created from the switch model field
• Platforms - created per NX-OS software version (NX-OS {version})
• Device Roles - mapped from each switch's switchRole, emitted only for the roles a fabric actually uses
• Interfaces - per-switch interface detail, with type, admin state, MTU, and description
• VRFs - fabric VRFs, with a fabric-scoped route distinguisher
• VLANs - overlay networks, carrying the VXLAN VNI in a custom field
• Prefixes - gateway subnets derived from overlay network gateway addresses
• IP Addresses - management, loopback, and routed interface addresses, plus overlay anycast gateway addresses

Key Features

• Fabric inventory discovery - reads fabrics, switches, per-switch interfaces, VRFs, and overlay networks from the Nexus Dashboard 4.x Manage API
• Fabric to site mapping - each fabric becomes a NetBox site, so switches, VLANs, and prefixes are grouped by the fabric they belong to
• Role mapping from switchRole - leaf, spine, border, border gateway, border spine, and access roles map to named NetBox device roles with colors; an unrecognized role is passed through verbatim rather than dropped
• Dynamic device types and platforms - creates NetBox device types from switch models and platforms from NX-OS software versions as switches are discovered
• Overlay VXLAN visibility - overlay networks become NetBox VLANs with the VXLAN VNI recorded in the nd_segment_id custom field, and their gateway subnets become prefixes
• Fabric-scoped VRFs - each VRF carries a route distinguisher built from its fabric name and VRF ID, so two fabrics reusing the same VRF ID stay distinct in NetBox
• Multi-fabric support - one policy reads every fabric on the cluster, and a per-fabric API failure is logged and skipped rather than aborting the run
• Scope filtering - optionally restrict ingestion to named fabrics
• JWT or API key authentication - authenticate with a username and password, optionally against a named login domain, or with a Nexus Dashboard API key
• Bootstrap mode - creates the custom fields and manufacturer in NetBox before the first full sync, with no Nexus Dashboard API calls
• Operational drift detection - run on a schedule to surface fabric inventory changes as deviations in NetBox Assurance

Integration Architecture

The Cisco Nexus Dashboard integration is built on the NetBox Labs controller integrations framework:

• Standardized integration pattern - consistent approach across all controller integrations
• NetBox Assurance integration - uses NetBox Assurance for safe data ingestion and deviation management
• Agent based - runs as part of the NetBox Discovery agent ecosystem using the Orb Agent Pro image
• One-way sync - data flows from Nexus Dashboard to NetBox only; no changes are written back to Nexus Dashboard

Compatibility

Supported NetBox Versions

• Commercial editions (NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise) with NetBox Assurance

Supported Cisco Nexus Dashboard Versions

• Nexus Dashboard 4.x, through the unified Manage API (/api/v1/manage/). The integration was validated live against Nexus Dashboard 4.2.1.
• On 4.1.x the per-switch interface API is absent, so interfaces and interface-assigned IP addresses are skipped. Fabrics, sites, switches, device types, platforms, roles, VRFs, VLANs, and prefixes all still sync, and each device still receives a primary IP from the switch's fabric management address. See Known Limitations.
• The legacy per-service NDFC and Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator APIs that 4.x replaced are not supported.