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What a patch panel is in kurnl

In the field, a unit’s in-wall cable doesn’t land on the switch directly — it lands on a patch panel, and a short patch cord runs from the panel to the switch. kurnl models that chain explicitly:
Two mappings are editable and independent:
  • Ablage — which panel port a unit terminates on (unit → panel port). Stable; it changes only if you physically re-terminate the wall cable.
  • Verkabelung — which switch port a panel port is patched to (panel port → switch port). This is the flexible patch cord.
The effective switch port — the one VLAN, rate-limit and provisioning hang off — is resolved through that chain. Re-patching the cord at the panel changes the effective switch port without re-terminating the wall cable.
Panel and switch ports are not necessarily 1-to-1. Panel port 5 can be patched to switch port 12. The dashboard shows both, so a technician always knows the real cord to run.

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Create a panel

Open a building → Network → Site Manager → [building] → Documentation. The rack view has ＋ Panel; each panel below it has a wiring sheet — one row per port: Rear · unit (wall) | Front · switch port (rack) | State. The step-by-step operator guide is MER wiring.
  • Add panel creates a panel with a chosen port count.
  • Backfill is the fastest start: it creates one 1-to-1 panel per attached switch (panel port N ↔ switch port N) and pre-fills the Ablage for every unit already mapped to that switch. It’s idempotent — safe to re-run; a switch that already has a matching panel is skipped.
When a building is synced to NetBox, creating or backfilling a panel also mirrors it into NetBox as a patch-panel device with front/rear ports (additive — no cables are moved).

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Set the Ablage and Verkabelung

On the wiring sheet each port row has two independent selectors:
  1. Rear · unit (Ablage) — pick the unit that terminates on this panel port.
  2. Front · switch port (Verkabelung) — pick the switch and switch port this panel port is patched to.
A unit maps to exactly one panel port, and a switch port is used by exactly one panel port; the dashboard blocks a double assignment. Batch splice… fills a range of rear ports with the units not spliced yet, in register order; Batch patch… runs a range of front ports onto the switch’s access ports one to one. Both preview every pair first and are applied all-or-nothing (POST /patch-panels/ports/batch). ＋ New unit creates a unit the register is missing without leaving the sheet.

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Cross-patching (moving a unit to a different switch port)

To move a unit to a different switch port without touching its wall termination, change the Verkabelung of its panel port (or move the unit’s Ablage to a panel port that is patched to the target switch port). The effective switch port follows the chain immediately.

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Read the chain per unit

The Units tab of the Site Manager shows each unit’s path to service — spliced › patched › minted › CPE — with a verdict (ready to splice, ready to patch, mint pending, in step, drift) and the action that moves it on. The wiring sheet’s State column says the same per panel port. Both derive from the panel and the unit’s logical port; nothing is stored twice.

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Keep provisioning in sync (reconcile)

Provisioning and the health surfaces (drift monitor, switch port map, network-health) read a materialized view of where each unit sits. When you re-patch a panel, that view can lag until it’s regenerated.
  • After a re-patch that changes a unit’s effective switch port, the unit shows mint pending (no location on the new port yet) or drift (a location still says the old port).
  • Resolve it with Mint now on the unit, or Mint n ready units for the building (idempotent — a legacy or stale row on the port is re-minted in place). Only then do the monitoring surfaces reflect the new patch.
kurnl does not auto-mint on a panel edit: for a NetBox-synced building that means a canonical topology write, which stays an explicit operator action. Mint yourself after re-patching.

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At a glance