Master Your Lab and Data Center Inventory with Rackpad (Open-Source IPAM)

Master Your Lab and Data Center Inventory with Rackpad (Open-Source IPAM)

The Chaos of the Background Infrastructure

In our previous articles, we have always focused on trying to monitor, control, and manage our devices within our laboratory or data center. But there is always the problem of the physical background: How do we physically manage these devices? How do we organize them, and how do we understand how they are connected to each other?

Maybe you don't have thousands of servers or hundreds of access points. But even if you just have a small homelab with ten machines, you still need to understand how they are interconnected and keep everything in order for when you need to troubleshoot. This is where a very interesting category of software comes into play: IPAM (IP Address Management) tools.

What is an IPAM?

The basic concept is to have a software solution that allows us to keep the use of IP addresses under control. But modern tools go beyond just IPs—they help us understand the relationships between devices, networks, physical racks, and cables.

It is important to note that an IPAM is an inventory and asset management tool. It does not provide active network services. It is not a DHCP server or a DNS server. We are simply using it to keep our physical and logical assets under control.

Enter Rackpad: The Ultimate Open-Source IPAM Tool

Today, we are looking at Rackpad. It is an incredibly interesting project moving at a fast pace, with a solid roadmap for new features. The main foundation of Rackpad is to give you a single pane of glass installed within your infrastructure to inventory and control all your assets.

Key Features of Rackpad

Seamless Integrations: Proxmox, UniFi, Omada, and More

In my opinion, the absolute best part of Rackpad is its integrations. If you had to manually input every single device, port, and IP, it would take forever. Fortunately, Rackpad integrates directly with popular platforms to pull this data automatically.

Currently, you can seamlessly import data from:

I integrated my Proxmox cluster and my UniFi devices into my setup. By simply creating a read-only API user and token in Proxmox, Rackpad was able to discover my virtual machines, their IP addresses, MAC addresses, and the virtual bridges they rely on. It also found my UniFi access points with all their details straight from the controller. It saves a massive amount of manual work!

How to Install Rackpad via Docker

Installing Rackpad is straightforward, but there is a specific workflow I recommend. While the official GitHub page provides a single-command install, I found it better to use a standard Docker Compose setup.

Here is the step-by-step process:

  1. Generate a Secret Key: Before starting the container, you need to define a RACKPAD_SECRET_KEY. You can generate this hash token using OpenSSL. This is fundamental because it encrypts the credentials used for your API integrations.
  2. Configure Docker Compose: Place this secret key into your docker-compose.yml or .env file alongside your other variables.
  3. Deploy: Run docker compose up -d in your terminal.
  4. Initial Setup: Once the container is up and running, navigate to the web GUI. It will prompt you to create your initial admin user and password.

Exploring the Rackpad Dashboard and Visual Topology

Once you log in, you are greeted with a rich dashboard. Because I already integrated Proxmox and UniFi, my dashboard immediately showed me devices needing attention, my IP network utilization, the number of wired ports, and objects that were currently offline.

The Rack View: You can build your physical racks (e.g., a 12U office rack) and place your servers, PDUs, and switches exactly where they live in the real world. Why is this useful? If you need to send a colleague to unplug a cable on "Proxmox Node 1", you can tell them exactly which room, which rack, and which slot to look at. No more guessing!

Cable & Port Mapping: Rackpad maps out which ports are connected to which devices. You can search by IP or MAC address to find exactly where a machine is physically plugged into your switch. The visualizer shows exactly how your Proxmox servers connect to your switches, and how those connect to your routers (like my UDM Pro).

Reporting: It provides a general overview of link capacity and bandwidth usage, which is highly requested in IT management. You can even export these clean, ordered reports as a PDF to share with your team.

Final Thoughts: Rackpad vs. NetBox

Rackpad is a very smart, accessible solution that is perfect for small environments, homelabs, and small companies. Of course, you might already know about enterprise-grade tools like NetBox. While NetBox is much more famous and heavily supported, it isn't always this easy to integrate or use immediately out of the box.

I highly suggest giving Rackpad a look. Try it out—it costs you nothing—and let me know in the comments what you think!

Join the Quadrata Community

That's all for today! See you next week—maybe with a surprise look at Zabbix 8, depending on what the Zabbix developers release.

Open source is knowledge. Zero passwords, only the truth without appearance. Nothing in the cloud, only the substance. Quadrata—creators of solutions!

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