Interface matching uses stale legacy mac_address on NetBox >= 4.2, BMC port merged into vmk0 on every run #584

Description

With a vmware source and a check_redfish source syncing the same ESXi hosts (Lenovo ThinkSystem with XCC), the XCC port never gets its own interface. On every run it's merged into the ESXi vmk0 interface. The XCC IP is moved to vmk0, the host's management IP is removed from it, and the device's primary_ip4 is unset.

In NetBox, vmk0 on these hosts had the XCC MAC address as its primary MAC (left over from an earlier run). The two sources then undo each other's work:

1. The VMware source sets the primary MAC of vmk0 to its own 00:50:56:… MAC address.
2. The check_redfish source still sees the XCC MAC on vmk0, matches the XCC port to it and sets the XCC MAC as primary MAC again.

Log of one host over a single run:

INFO: Interface 'vmk0 (esxi01)' attribute 'primary_mac_address' changed from 'AA:BB:CC:00:00:05' to '00:50:56:00:00:01'
...
DEBUG: Parsing inventory file /opt/netbox-sync/inventory/esxi01-xcc.json
INFO: Ip address '10.0.10.172/22' attribute 'assigned_object_id' changed from 'None' to 'vmk0 (esxi01)'
INFO: IP address is no longer assigned to vmk0 (esxi01) and therefore removed from this interface
INFO: Setting attribute 'primary_ip4' for 'esxi01' to None

In my environment this affected several Lenovo hosts synced by both sources.

Cause

From NetBox 4.2 on, add_update_interface() only maintains the interface's primary_mac_address object. The legacy mac_address field of the interface keeps the value NetBox returned when the data was read and is never updated during a run.

map_object_interfaces_to_current_interfaces() in module/sources/common/source_base.py still matches on data.mac_address. Once a source changes an interface's primary MAC address, every source running after it matches against the old value.

Proposed fix

On NetBox >= 4.2, use the MAC address of the interface's primary_mac_address object for matching. Older NetBox versions keep using mac_address.

Environment

• netbox-sync 1.9.0
• NetBox 4.7.2
• vCenter 8.0.3, Lenovo XClarity Controller inventory files from check_redfish