Export a diagram¶
Take the topology somewhere else: a slide, a Grafana dashboard, a wiki page, or your own documentation.
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| An exact picture of the canvas | SVG |
| A live traffic map in Grafana | Grafana bundle |
| An editable diagram | Draw.io |
| A diagram as text, for Markdown or Graphviz | Mermaid and Graphviz |
| An interactive topology in your docs | The viewer |
SVG¶
Export SVG or Draw.io in the toolbar opens Export SVG. It exports what you see, including your styles, groups, and text. Choose the zoom, padding, background, and whether to include annotations and interface labels.
VS Code asks where to save the file. The desktop and web apps download it.
Grafana bundle¶
Turn on Grafana bundle under Include to get three files for the Grafana Flow panel:
| File | Contains |
|---|---|
<name>.svg |
The diagram, with IDs Grafana can color. |
<name>.grafana.json |
A dashboard with the Flow panel. |
<name>.flow_panel.yaml |
Which metric colors which link, and the thresholds. |
The panel colors links by traffic and interface state, with optional rate labels and a legend. Advanced Grafana Settings set sizes, thresholds, and label shortening.
The bundle is only the picture and the mapping. It expects a Grafana with matching telemetry already set up; it does not deploy one.
Draw.io¶
Open Export SVG or Draw.io in the toolbar and choose Draw.io. The file holds the whole lab with your layout and colors, as shapes you can edit:
| On the canvas | In Draw.io |
|---|---|
| Nodes | Shapes with their icon. Edit Data shows the kind, type, and image. |
| Links | Connectors that follow when you move a node. |
| Interface labels | Labels attached to their link. |
| Groups | Containers that move with their members. |
| Shapes and text | Shapes and text boxes. |
The page takes the canvas color unless you choose your own. Traffic rate labels and script buttons are left out, and editing the file does not change the lab.
Parallel links curve around a fixed point. If you move only one end of such a link, drag that point to a new place or use Clear Waypoints in Draw.io.
VS Code asks where to save the file. The desktop and web apps download it. Use SVG when the diagram should look exactly like your canvas.
Mermaid and Graphviz¶
Export Graph (Mermaid) and Export Graph (Graphviz), in the actions of a lab, run containerlab graph --mermaid or --dot on the topology file. The lab does not need to run. Mermaid asks for the direction of the flowchart first.
VS Code saves the file next to the topology and opens it. The desktop and web apps download it.
Labs on a lab host need a clab-api-server that offers these exports. On an older one, the actions say so.
Interactive docs¶
The diagrams on this site are the real viewer, reading .clab.yml files. You can do the same in your own documentation: readers pan, zoom, inspect nodes, and download the lab. See Embed the viewer.