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Maintainer wanted - sunsetting this repository by 30.11.2026 #474
Description
Hi,
I thought about how to write this, but the only thing which comes to my mind is: It doesn't spark joy anymore.
It is personally difficult to keep up with the amount of changes in NetBox.
I neither have the environment to test all use cases nor do I work in this field anymore.
The bug reports and feature request are piling up and I can't find enough time to take care of them.
It was a fun ride but it has to come to an end.
But I also don't want to do a straight rug pull and therefore would be willing to hand over this repo
to new maintainers. This could happen under following conditions:
- if you are interested then I would be happy to assist with reviewing and
merging PRs which fix outstanding bugs or adds new features - if this happens in decent code quality and dedication then I finally would transfer this repository
If this is not possible then I would archive this repo by the end of October 2025.
Hence the license, anyone is permitted to create and provide a fork.
I would also be happy to link to it if desired.
It doesn't fell great to put down my most popular repository on GitHub but
this uncertain state doesn't help anyone either.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Activity
AskskwBv8T2nrm4Qnj commentedon Jul 24, 2025
Although I haven't used netbox-sync directly, I still greatly appreciate the amount of work you've put into building and maintaining it. I wish you the best in whatever you will be pursuing in the future!
Apfelwurm commentedon Jul 25, 2025
Hey @bb-Ricardo , its sad to read that announcement, but also totally relatable!
Thank you so much for your work on this project, we are using it since 2021 and it makes our life way easyer!
I would love to take care of it in the future, but sadly my capacity won't let me do so and i really hope, someone picks up the work.
Thanks for this approach in handling the situation, well done!
Maybe consider pinning this issue as well and adding a hint into the readme, so more people notice it?
Take care and thanks again!
joachimBurket commentedon Jul 28, 2025
Hi @bb-Ricardo. First, a very big thanks for the huge work you did on this repository!
It's indeed sad to have to put down his repository, but it's also very understandable, especially considering that you no longer work in the field! Thanks for the way you're handling it.
As @Apfelwurm said, I think it would be a good idea to pin the issue and add a link in the README.
Regarding the repository maintenance, I do want to try to help maintaining it, because we will certainly try to continue using it on our infrastructure. But sadly I'm pretty sure I won't have enough time to do more than 50% of the job you were doing.
So, if one or two others are willing to continue maintaining the project, I would gladly be part of it.
adds note to readme about sunsetting this project #474
Remlas commentedon Jul 30, 2025
Hi @bb-Ricardo,
First of all, thanks for providing such a solid starting base. With a few internal tweaks, we've started using this in our infrastructure — so I’ve already taken a look into the source code and logic inside :)
Since I won't have time to cover even 30% of the work you've been doing, I think I can only contribute as part of the maintenance team — for now, I'm running CI/CD for daily vCenter → NetBox synchronization.
So @joachimBurket, how many more people do we need on board?
patschi commentedon Jul 30, 2025
This was actually a tiny shock to read - this project has been so valuable, helpful and great to use. Even if it's just for my own personal use. Thank you so much for all the effort, @bb-Ricardo!
I'm not that familiar with the code base and pretty much beginner-level with python, I'm happy to contribute a bit of my time if needed. I might be able to cover some situations in my environment.
@bb-Ricardo Just wondering - would you want to step back entirely from this project, or maybe continue development in a shared, distributed team where everyone is trying to get some time?
afoster commentedon Aug 6, 2025
Hi @bb-Ricardo
We (Sol1) are a Netbox Export partner and would be interested in taking over maintenance duties. At the very least we will fork the repo and keep it working against current Netbox versions and contribute to whatever becomes the canonical upstream. Let me know if you want to chat further. Thanks!
adds note to readme about sunsetting this project bb-Ricardo#474
bb-Ricardo commentedon Sep 4, 2025
Hi @afoster,
And thank you for the offer. I'm interested and can see that you started opening PRs, which is fantastic.
Please send me an email and we can chat about it.
ekrichbaum commentedon Sep 11, 2025
Also interested in assisting here. Let me know what you need.
rizlas commentedon Oct 15, 2025
@bb-Ricardo that's sad news of course but is right that you move on with your life and other cool projects that attracts you more! I'm very happy that I had the possibility to collaborate with you since the early stage. It was amazing thank you!
You got my email, please contact me if you need some help to move netbox-sync forward!
KekwEzmo commentedon Oct 20, 2025
I just found out about this project after painfully building it from scratch for my own usecase, I'd be willing to help out here and there with bugfixes & smaller features, if other people are up for it because this repo has been a godsend for me and it would be a shame to see it archived.
berlikm commentedon Oct 23, 2025
@bb-Ricardo do you have any update, have you found maintainer ?
[-]Maintainer wanted - sunsetting this repository by 31.10.2025[/-][+]Maintainer wanted - NOT sunsetting this repository by 31.10.2025[/+]12 remaining items
semx commentedon Aug 6, 2026
Hi @bb-Ricardo — I'd like to take you up on the process you described: prove it with PRs first, transfer later if the quality holds up.
Quick intro: SRE/infrastructure engineer; my day job includes VMware vCenter environments, so I can test the vCenter source against real clusters (6.x–8.x). Python is a working language for me, and I'm an active OSS contributor (merged PRs in kubernetes/kubernetes, karpenter, goreleaser, helm; I also maintain a fork of helmwave where I took over exactly this kind of stalled maintenance — dependency/CVE cleanup, CI, landing community PRs).
Proposed start: I'll go through the open bug reports, pick the ones I can reproduce against current NetBox releases, and send fixes as small, reviewable PRs — starting with whatever you consider most painful. If you can label or shortlist 2–3 issues you'd most like off your plate, I'll start there; otherwise I'll triage by reactions/duplicates and propose an order.
If the arrangement still stands, I'd be glad to work toward taking over maintainership.
[-]Maintainer wanted - NOT sunsetting this repository by 31.10.2025[/-][+]Maintainer wanted - sunsetting this repository by 30.11.2026[/+]bb-Ricardo commentedon Sep 1, 2026
Hi @semx,
thank you very much for the offer, I added you as a contributor.
if you like, there are issues assigned for the 1.9.0 release which have not been fully tested/solved: https://github.com/bb-Ricardo/netbox-sync/milestone/15
If you could work on these, that would be fantastic.
semx commentedon Sep 1, 2026
Thanks @bb-Ricardo, invitation accepted — happy to help keep this project alive.
I'll start with the v1.9.0 milestone as you suggested:
skip_fhrp_group_ips): there's already a PR, but @ionoci hit a traceback running it on the dev branch. I'll reproduce that, get the fix in with a test, and drive it to merge.On the testing pain point you've mentioned a few times: rather than depending on live vCenter access, I'd like to set up vcsim (the govmomi simulator) driven by the
govc object.savemockups — @ionoci already shared v6.7 and v8.x dumps here. That gives reproducible tests that can run in CI, which I'd like to add as an early PR so future changes get validated automatically. I have hands-on vCenter 6.x–8.x access to capture additional mockups where a version-specific gap shows up.I'll triage the open bug reports in parallel and send small, reviewable PRs. Will report progress here.
bb-Ricardo commentedon Sep 2, 2026
thank you very much, that would be great if we could get the test setup working first and then continue with the PRs.
semx commentedon Sep 2, 2026
Understood, test setup first.
Two security items closed on the way, since they were quick: #539 (the Hetzner token in the log, thanks for merging) and #540, which bumps the two Dependabot findings that still apply to
development(idna, setuptools). The urllib3 and requests alerts are againstmainand are already resolved ondevelopment. That is all of them; the seven CodeQL alerts onobject_classes.pyare one pattern (MAC addresses flowing into genericgot: '{value}'diagnostics), inventory data rather than secrets, so I would dismiss them as false positives unless you see it differently.Next I am building the vcsim-based test harness from the govc dumps in this thread and will open that as the next PR.
adds a vcsim based test suite and runs it in CI
semx commentedon Sep 22, 2026
@bb-Ricardo
developmentis 164 commits ahead ofmainnow, CI green throughout, and we've run it end-to-end against live NetBox (4.4-4.7) and vcsim on top of the unit suite without regressions.The only open item left on the v1.9.0 milestone is #344, and specifically the VLAN half - I asked there on Sep 9 whether it's worth a config switch or better left for a follow-up, still open.
Is #344's VLAN half a hard gate for cutting v1.9.0, or should we merge
developmentintomainnow and treat that as a follow-up issue?bb-Ricardo commentedon Sep 26, 2026
@semx
How I did releases before:
One thing I would like to change before releasing: moving from docker.io to GitHub container registry.
If the PR for #344 improves things and does not break existing behaviour, then we should merge it as well. We can add further improvements in an upcoming release.
What do you think?
semx commentedon Sep 27, 2026
Agreed on the release flow, and on keeping #344 to "improves things without changing existing behaviour" - if it cannot meet that bar it waits for the next release rather than holding this one.
On the registry move: I would do docker.io -> GHCR as its own PR before the release branch is cut, so the image workflow is exercised on development first and the release notes can point at the new pull address. If you want, I can prepare that PR: push to ghcr.io/bb-ricardo/netbox-sync, keep publishing to docker.io for this one release with a deprecation note in the notes, drop it the release after. That gives current users one cycle to switch.
For the three open PRs: #559 and #560 are ready on your review; for #565 I ran the merged tree against the vcsim suite (205 passing) and confirmed that with
sync_host_cablesat its default the cable code is never entered and no cable objects are created, so existing users see no change. I will merge them in that order and keep the release notes updated as they land.bb-Ricardo commentedon Sep 29, 2026
Thank you ver much for merging the PRs.
The switch for the docker repository move sounds good to me. Let's do that.
semx commentedon Sep 30, 2026
Registry: #571 makes
ghcr.io/bb-ricardo/netbox-syncthe documented pull address (the package is already public and multi-arch) and states v1.9.0 as the last Docker Hub release. The workflow keeps both pushes for this release; the Docker Hub steps come out afterwards.#572 renames the tag sync dependency to
vcf-sdkin the option description and the warning (fixes #569; the old name no longer imports on Python 3.12+).Release notes: the draft covers 49 of the 50 merged PRs; missing is #555 (
fix: skip_host_nics must skip only the physical interfaces, not the host, Bugfixes). Worth two lines under Changes: the new pull address, with Docker Hub deprecated after this release, andvcf-sdkinstead ofvsphere-automation-sdkfor tag sync. Title suggestion in the style of the previous ones:v1.9.0: adds a Hetzner source, check_redfish modules, NetBox 4.5 tokens and a test suite.Once #571 and #572 are in, #570 is ready from my side. Thank you for the kind words in the notes.
bb-Ricardo commentedon Oct 3, 2026
I believe this issue is solved for now. Thank you all for your support and contributions.