CONTRIBUTING.md

Getting Help

If you encounter any issues installing or using Proxbox, try one of the following resources to get assistance. Please do not open a GitHub issue except to report bugs or request features.

GitHub Discussions

GitHub's discussions are the best place to get help or propose rough ideas for new functionality. Their integration with GitHub allows for easily cross- referencing and converting posts to issues as needed. There are several categories for discussions:

• General - General community discussion
• Ideas - Ideas for new functionality that isn't yet ready for a formal feature request
• Q&A - Request help with installing or using NetBox

Slack

For real-time chat, you can join the #netbox Slack channel on NetDev Community. Unfortunately, the Slack channel does not provide long-term retention of chat history, so try to avoid it for any discussions would benefit from being preserved for future reference.

Telegram

If you prefer, you can also join the telegram group to freely discuss about the project and get assistance from community.

Reporting Bugs

• First, ensure that you're running the latest stable version of Proxbox and Netbox. If you're running an older version, it's possible that the bug has already been fixed.

• Check following links to know the latest stable version for both applications:

  • Netbox releases
  • Proxbox releases

• Next, check the GitHub issues list to see if the bug you've found has already been reported. If you think you may be experiencing a reported issue that hasn't already been resolved, please click "add a reaction" in the top right corner of the issue and add a thumbs up (+1). You might also want to add a comment describing how it's affecting your installation. This will allow us to prioritize bugs based on how many users are affected.

• When submitting an issue, please be as descriptive as possible. Be sure to provide all information request in the issue template, including:

  • The environment in which NetBox is running
  • The exact steps that can be taken to reproduce the issue
  • Expected and observed behavior
  • Any error messages generated
  • Screenshots (if applicable)

• Please avoid prepending any sort of tag (e.g. "[Bug]") to the issue title and also keep in mind that we prioritize bugs based on their severity and how much work is required to resolve them.

Feature Requests

• First, check the GitHub issues list to see if the feature you're requesting is already listed. (Be sure to search closed issues as well, since some feature requests have been rejected.) If the feature you'd like to see has already been requested and is open, click "add a reaction" in the top right corner of the issue and add a thumbs up (+1). This ensures that the issue has a better chance of receiving attention. Also feel free to add a comment with any additional justification for the feature. (However, note that comments with no substance other than a "+1" will be deleted. Please use GitHub's reactions feature to indicate your support.)

• Before filing a new feature request, consider raising your idea on the community channels available, like Slack and Telegram (we don't have a mailing list yet). Feedback you receive there will help validate and shape the proposed feature before filing a formal issue.

• Good feature requests are very narrowly defined. Be sure to thoroughly describe the functionality and data model(s) being proposed. The more effort you put into writing a feature request, the better its chance is of being implemented. Overly broad feature requests will be closed.

• When submitting a feature request on GitHub, be sure to include all information requested by the issue template, including:

  • A detailed description of the proposed functionality
  • A use case for the feature; who would use it and what value it would add to Proxbox
  • A rough description of changes necessary to the database schema (if applicable)
  • Any third-party libraries or other resources which would be involved

• Please avoid prepending any sort of tag (e.g. "[Feature]") to the issue title. The issue will be reviewed by a moderator after submission and the appropriate labels will be applied for categorization.

Submitting Pull Requests

• If you're interested in contributing to Proxbox, I would suggest you to do it using ntc-netbox-plugin-onboarding to set up your development environment. You can also use your own way, but be sure to develop it using Netbox's code and not a forked one, as it may change the normal behavior of Netbox.

Before starting your code, discuss it with the community and project's maintainers

• Be sure to open an issue before starting work on a pull request, and discuss your idea with the Proxbox maintainers before beginning work. This will help prevent wasting time on something that might we might not be able to implement. When suggesting a new feature, also make sure it won't conflict with any work that's already in progress.

• Once you've opened or identified an issue you'd like to work on, ask that it be assigned to you so that others are aware it's being worked on. A maintainer will then mark the issue as "accepted."

• Any pull request which does not relate to an accepted issue will be closed.

• All new functionality must include relevant tests where applicable.

Use develop branch to contribute

• When submitting a pull request, please be sure to work off of the develop branch, rather than main. The develop branch is used for ongoing development, while main is used for tagging stable releases.

• In most cases, it is not necessary to add a changelog entry: A maintainer will take care of this when the PR is merged. (This helps avoid merge conflicts resulting from multiple PRs being submitted simultaneously.)

Commenting

Only comment on an issue if you are sharing a relevant idea or constructive feedback. Do not comment on an issue just to show your support (give the top post a 👍 instead) or ask for an ETA. These comments will be deleted to reduce noise in the discussion.