Racks & rack types

The rack elevation

Opening a rack shows its elevation: a numbered U grid you place devices into. Each device occupies a contiguous span of rack units on the front (or rear) face. Racks can number bottom-up or top-down, and carry their own height, power budget and weight limit, all of which feed the roll-ups and design review.

You can drive the elevation entirely from the keyboard — J / K to step between devices, ↑ / ↓ to nudge a device a U at a time (hold ⌥ to jump past its neighbours to the next free space), [ / ] to resize it, and ⌘C / ⌘V / ⌘D to copy, paste and duplicate devices. To copy a whole rack, choose Duplicate rack from the rack’s menu or the command palette. The copy keeps the cables and power connections between its own devices; connections to other racks stay with the original.

Drag a device to move it. A ghost shows where it will land — outlined in red when those units are taken, in which case the drop is refused with the reason. Drop it on another rack on the board to move it there; its cables and power connections move with it. The device’s inspector also has an exact Position (U) and a Move to rack… action.

Several devices at once

To add a block of identical devices, right-click an empty unit and choose Fill range…, or use Fill range… in the rack’s inspector. Set the start unit, how many devices, their device type and role, and a gap in units between them. The preview names every device by your device naming rules and lists any position that is already occupied or would run past the end of the rack; those positions are left out. All the new devices are added in one step, so one ⌘Z removes them, and they stay selected for editing.

To edit devices together, select them in one rack: ⇧-click selects every device between the last device you clicked and this one, and ⌘-click (Ctrl-click on Windows and Linux) adds a device or takes it out. The inspector then sets the device type, role, face and colour of all of them, moves them together by a number of units, or deletes them. Each change is one undo step. A move that would land on another device or leave the rack is refused, and a face that is taken at a device’s units leaves that device as it was. ↑ / ↓ move the selection a unit, ⌫ deletes it, and Esc or a click on an empty unit clears it. Copy, duplicate and resize work on one device at a time. Collaborators see the device you clicked last.

Rack types & rack templates

A rack type defines a cabinet model and its dimensions. Changing a type’s size resizes the racks built from it; a rack whose devices wouldn’t fit keeps its size and is detached from the type. A type can also record its mounting depth (the deepest device it takes: on a four-post rack, the distance between the front and rear posts as they are set), the post range its adjustable posts can be set to, its form factor (2-post frame, 4-post frame or cabinet) and a static load rating, which the design review uses for its fit and weight checks. Without a set mounting depth, the review checks device depth with the posts at their deepest setting and rail kits for overlap with the post range. The built-in APC and Vertiv types carry their vendor’s published post range; the generic types carry none, so set one on them. The rack inspector’s Rack type field and Project settings → Rack types → Add from catalogue also search the catalogue’s vendor racks (the NetBox library’s rack types, with their mounting depth and load rating where the vendor publishes them); choosing one copies it into the project and records the catalogue version it came from. When a later catalogue version has new values for a copied type, the Rack types table offers them as Update available, field by field; nothing changes until you apply them, and Keep my values dismisses the offer. The built-in types stay available offline. A rack templatecaptures a complete rack design: its frame, devices, internal data cables and device-to-PDU power connections. In a hosted organisation, open Project settings → Library → Rack templates to design one with the normal Physical, Power and Cabling tools, or capture an existing rack. Use + Templatein the estate navigator or Insert rack template here from a space’s context menu to open the insertion dialog. Templates are available in every project in the organisation. Each inserted rack is independent, with new device and connection identities; later template edits affect future insertions only. Hardware serial numbers are not copied.

Connections that leave the source rack are shown as handoffs to wire at the destination. Inserting a template does not reconnect them to equipment in the original project. Pod patterns remain available for repeating whole rows within a project.

The four workspaces

On desktop, switch workspaces in the left rail. On smaller screens, use the switch above the board. Each workspace shows a different part of the same design:

• Physical — the clean elevation. Place, move and resize devices here.
• Power — opens a rack-context workspace for device inlets, PDU outlets and estimated load. See power & thermal.
• Cabling — opens the workspace for named ports and physical connections. See structured cabling. Use Device wiring for a device's ports and destinations, or Complete path to follow a selected cable through panels and racks.
• Topology — arrange devices from your rack inventory into named network diagrams with layers and connections.
• Store room — the devices that exist or are planned but are not racked yet; see the store room.

Press 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 to switch to Physical, Power, Cabling, Topology or Store room.