Device Library and Images

Device Library and Images

RackDaddy places real equipment in your racks from a device-type library: a catalogue of manufacturers and models with their U height, ports, and power draw. The Lab edition bundles this library and imports it automatically, so you can start placing equipment immediately.

What ships with the Lab

• The device-type library (around 5,589 types) is seeded into the database on first boot. No download needed.
• Generated placeholder images. For every device type without a real photo, RackDaddy draws a clean schematic front and rear image in the background. Your racks look complete out of the box.

You can watch the image-generation progress, and manage images, in Rack Manager under Equipment Images.

Getting real equipment photos

Placeholders are always available and safe. If you want real product photos, you can install an optional image pack.

Option A: one click in the app

In Rack Manager, open the device library and click Download real images. RackDaddy will:

1. Download the image pack (a compressed archive) from the configured URL.
2. Extract it into the uploads volume.
3. Match each image to your device types by slug.

Progress is shown while it runs. The download is large and the first match over a full pack takes a short while; after that, re-running is instant because already-matched images are skipped.

The pack URL defaults to the public RackDaddy device-image release. To use your own pack or mirror, set DEVICE_IMAGES_PACK_URL (see Configuration).

Option B: do it manually

If you would rather not use the in-app button, or your server has no outbound internet:

1. Download the pack archive (rackdaddy-device-images.tar.gz) from the release on any machine.

2. Copy it into the API container and extract it into the device-images folder:

   docker compose -f docker-compose.lab.yml cp rackdaddy-device-images.tar.gz api:/tmp/pack.tar.gz
   docker compose -f docker-compose.lab.yml exec api sh -c 'mkdir -p /app/uploads/device-images && tar -xzf /tmp/pack.tar.gz -C /app/uploads/device-images && rm /tmp/pack.tar.gz'

3. In Rack Manager, click Match images (or call POST /api/device-images/match-only) to wire the extracted files to your device types.

The pack is a .tar.gz of per-vendor folders with images named <slug>.front.png and <slug>.rear.png. RackDaddy matches those names to the device-type slugs.

Uploading your own images

You can also add photos by hand. In Rack Manager, drag and drop an image onto a device type, or use the bulk upload. Uploaded images always take precedence over generated placeholders.

Additional device types

The bundled library covers the common vendors. To pull the latest community device-type definitions from the upstream project, click Check GitHub for additional types in the library view. This clones the netbox-community/devicetype-library and lets you import any types not already present.