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docs: add Datacenter access section (Netbird VPN + board access)#936

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igorpecovnik merged 25 commits into
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feat/datacenter-access-docs
Jul 6, 2026
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docs: add Datacenter access section (Netbird VPN + board access)#936
igorpecovnik merged 25 commits into
mainfrom
feat/datacenter-access-docs

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@igorpecovnik igorpecovnik commented Jul 5, 2026

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Adds a Datacenter access page under CONTRIBUTE for board maintainers who need to reach the hardware lab.

What's covered

  • VPN via Netbird — install the client and netbird up --management-url https://netbird.armbian.com; authentication is via GitHub, gated to the board-maintainers team.
  • Accessing boards — look them up in NetBox (netbox.armbian.com) and SSH to their IP.
  • Boards list — scaffolded with <!-- BOARDS-START --> / <!-- BOARDS-STOP --> markers and a placeholder, to be auto-updated via PR from NetBox (same mechanism as the wireless-performance table). The CI generator is a follow-up.

Please sanity-check the specifics

I wrote the Netbird steps from the standard self-hosted GitHub-SSO flow; confirm these match the real setup:

  • Management URL is exactly https://netbird.armbian.com (no custom port)?
  • The Linux install one-liner (pkgs.netbird.io/install.sh) is the method you want to recommend?
  • SSH access: I left the login generic (ssh <user>@<board-ip>, e.g. root@10.0.50.42) since I didn't want to invent credentials/key handling — tell me the actual login (root? per-maintainer key?) and I'll make it exact.

Follow-up

Want me to build the NetBox→PR generator (in autotests) that fills the Boards table between the markers, like the iperf/wireless doc PR? I can wire it up next.

Create docs preview on PR

Documentation website preview will be available shortly:


 Open WWW preview 

New CONTRIBUTE page for board maintainers: how to reach the hardware lab.
- Connect to the Datacenter over the Netbird VPN (netbird.armbian.com),
  authenticating via GitHub; access is gated to the board-maintainers team.
- Find boards in NetBox (netbox.armbian.com) and SSH to them by IP.
- A "Boards" list scaffolded with <!-- BOARDS-START -->/<!-- BOARDS-STOP -->
  markers, to be auto-updated via PR from NetBox (same mechanism as the
  wireless performance results); generator to follow.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
@github-actions github-actions Bot added size/medium PR with more then 50 and less then 250 lines Needs review Seeking for review and removed size/medium PR with more then 50 and less then 250 lines labels Jul 5, 2026
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Review Change Stack

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info
⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: aa36e9cf-0301-44a4-9c20-0caddb42c8b0

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 835168c and fee8958.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)
  • docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md
✅ Files skipped from review due to trivial changes (1)
  • docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md

Walkthrough

This pull request adds a new documentation page, docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md, describing how Armbian board maintainers access the Datacenter hardware lab. It covers requesting access through the board-maintainers GitHub team, using the Netbird VPN, SSH access to boards as root, a reflashing warning, and an auto-updated boards table. mkdocs.yml is also updated with a new Datacenter access navigation entry under CONTRIBUTE.

File Change Summary
docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md New Datacenter access documentation page with access request, VPN, SSH, warning, and boards list sections
mkdocs.yml Added the Datacenter access navigation entry

Estimated code review effort: 1 (Trivial) | ~5 minutes

Related issues: None specified.

Related PRs: None specified.

Suggested labels: documentation

Suggested reviewers: None specified.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5
✅ Passed checks (5 passed)
Check name Status Explanation
Title check ✅ Passed The title accurately summarizes the new Datacenter access documentation and its Netbird/board access focus.
Description check ✅ Passed The description clearly matches the PR by describing the Datacenter access page, Netbird VPN, and board access details.
Docstring Coverage ✅ Passed No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
✨ Finishing Touches
🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
  • Create PR with unit tests
  • Commit unit tests in branch feat/datacenter-access-docs

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Embed the Armbian Datacenter rack photo (images/dc-rack.png) at the top of
the Datacenter access page.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
@github-actions github-actions Bot added the size/medium PR with more then 50 and less then 250 lines label Jul 5, 2026
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
The board-maintainers team is 'closed' (visible to org members), so an
existing Armbian org member can self-serve "Request to join" from the team
page; non-members need to join the org first. Add both paths.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Boards install each maintainer's GitHub SSH public keys into root's
authorized_keys, so access is `ssh root@<ip>` with no password (your
matching private key). Make the instructions specific.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
NetBox isn't accessible to board maintainers, so point board lookup at the
auto-generated Boards list on this page instead. That list is refreshed by
the reconcile action (scans the Datacenter, opens a PR), like the wireless
performance results.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Reflashing is still under testing; if a board gets bricked, report it on
Discord so it can be recovered.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Populate the BOARDS-START/STOP block with an initial snapshot of the active
device-under-test boards + their datacenter IPs, from the reconcile run
28750845570 (via NetBox). One board (lc-opi3) dropped: its primary IP is a
docker 172.17.x address, not VPN-reachable. The reconcile action will keep
this refreshed via PR from here on.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Seed the Boards table with the full column set the generator produces:
Board | IP | Boot | Link | Switch | PDU | Last seen. Matches the autotests
board-list.py output so the first automated refresh is a clean no-op.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026

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Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md`:
- Around line 94-96: The Datacenter board description currently states that the
list is already kept up to date automatically, but this change only adds the
static snapshot/scaffold. Update the wording in the Datacenter docs to use
future/intent language such as “intended to be kept up to date automatically,”
or point to the actual refresh job if that exists, so the text matches the
current implementation.
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Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

  • Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
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ℹ️ Review info
⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 09084260-3266-4eb4-ab66-f730de05f663

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 2f67476 and 614f224.

⛔ Files ignored due to path filters (1)
  • docs/images/dc-rack.png is excluded by !**/*.png
📒 Files selected for processing (2)
  • docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md
  • mkdocs.yml

Comment thread docs/Contribute/Datacenter.md Outdated
…already automatic"

Point at the actual refresh job (Inventory: scan & reconcile / the
publish-boards step) and describe what it does — reads correctly both
before and after that job is live, rather than claiming the static seed is
already self-updating.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
@igorpecovnik igorpecovnik requested review from a team, clee and joekhoobyar and removed request for a team July 5, 2026 21:20
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 5, 2026
@igorpecovnik

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@SuperKali Did I missed anything?

@SuperKali

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I give a look in the morning later, I just woke up now

@SuperKali

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@igorpecovnik Most of the information regarding Netbird is correct, but as you mentioned before, take screenshots from the forum and add them there—because users might not realize that to log in to Netbird, they need to click “Use Authentik” and then click the GitHub logo below it in Authentik. I’d also add that the board has its own FQDN: slug.test(1,2).armbian.lan, in case that’s of interest.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
@igorpecovnik igorpecovnik force-pushed the feat/datacenter-access-docs branch from 8a9aa5d to 835168c Compare July 6, 2026 07:41
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 6, 2026
Add the two Netbird/Authentik auth screenshots and walk the browser step:
1) choose "Continue with Authentik", 2) click the GitHub icon on the
Armbian Auth page.

Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 6, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 6, 2026
Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
github-actions Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jul 6, 2026
@igorpecovnik igorpecovnik merged commit 62fe049 into main Jul 6, 2026
5 checks passed
@igorpecovnik igorpecovnik deleted the feat/datacenter-access-docs branch July 6, 2026 08:49
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