Trigger event for related changes

[alehaa]

When using NetBox as a source for automation, I came across a small problem:

As I understand it, an event is always fired for the object that is changed. This means that if my rule is bound to a dcim.device, it will be triggered when the device changes. If the interfaces of the device change, it doesn't fire. It should be that simple.

Is there a way to be notified of all changes related to the specified object? A practical example would be to rerun the Ansible playbook to change the switch configuration, e.g. if an interface changes or the rack name changes.

[alehaa]

Definitely not API-compliant, so needless to say use at your own risk. Signal handlers could be used to add additional events for other components as well.

from django.db.models.signals import post_delete, post_save
from django.dispatch import receiver

from dcim.models import Interface
from extras.choices import ObjectChangeActionChoices
from extras.events import enqueue_object
from extras.signals import is_same_object
from netbox.context import current_request, events_queue


@receiver((post_save, post_delete), sender=Interface)
def handle_changed_object(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    """
    Fires when an object is created or updated.
    """
    queue = events_queue.get()
    request = current_request.get()
    action = ObjectChangeActionChoices.ACTION_UPDATE

    rel_obj = instance.device

    # check if already in queue
    if queue and any([is_same_object(rel_obj, e, request.id) for e in queue]):
        return

    enqueue_object(queue, rel_obj, request.user, request.id, action)

Right now this is a bit hacky, but it does the job. Maybe in the future I'll make this more general or provide it as a small plugin.