Rackula

What Rackula designs

Rackula is a drag and drop rack layout designer. The README's tagline says you can plan your rack, move some pixels, and save your shoulders, meaning it replaces hand drawn rack diagrams with a visual editor. The core idea is that you drag devices into your rack from a real hardware library rather than placing grey boxes. The README says the device images come from the NetBox devicetype library, so the icons represent actual hardware instead of generic placeholders. This matters for documentation because a reader can recognize the real model at a glance. The README presents Rackula as a tool for anyone who plans or documents data center racks, and it emphasizes the visual, pointer driven workflow over configuration files. The project is MIT licensed and is built with TypeScript. The README shows a GitHub release badge and a Docker badge, so the project is distributed both as a downloadable release and as a container image. The CalVer versioning badge indicates dated version numbers rather than semantic versions, which fits a tool released on a schedule. The tagline about saving your shoulders is a joke about rack planning, but it makes the point that the tool removes the effort of drawing racks by hand on paper or in generic diagram software.

Device library and visuals

The README highlights that Rackula uses real device images from the NetBox devicetype library rather than grey boxes. That library is a community catalog of network and server hardware, so the devices you drag into a rack carry recognizable front panel art. The README includes screenshots showing a rack populated with server and network devices, which illustrates the finished look. The drag and drop interaction is the main way to build a layout. You pick a device from the library and drop it into a position in the rack. Because the images are real, the resulting diagram doubles as a quick visual inventory. The README does not describe the library as editable in the excerpt, but it presents the use of real art as a key quality difference from generic diagram tools. The hero animation in the README shows the designer in action, reinforcing that the product is about moving devices around a rack with the mouse. The device library is what makes the output useful for change requests and documentation, since the picture matches the hardware someone will actually rack. Real device images from the NetBox library mean a diagram built in Rackula looks like the hardware itself, which helps a reader confirm the model without cross checking a separate spec sheet for each device.

Exporting layouts for documentation

The README lists export to PNG, PDF, or SVG as a feature, so a finished rack layout can be dropped into documentation and change requests. PNG works for quick sharing in chat or wikis, PDF suits printed or formal documents, and SVG keeps the layout scalable for editing or embedding. The README frames these exports as the bridge between planning and the paperwork that surrounds rack changes. A screenshot in the README shows a rack with server and network devices, demonstrating the kind of diagram you would export. The project also ships as a Docker image, which the README badges advertise, so a team can run Rackula in a container rather than installing it locally. Combined with the GitHub release channel, this gives two ways to obtain the tool. The MIT license means the exported diagrams and the tool itself are free to use and modify. The CalVer scheme tells users the version corresponds to a date, which helps when referencing a specific build in a change request or an audit of the rack plan. Two distribution channels, a GitHub release and a Docker image, give teams a choice between a direct download and a container, and the MIT license applies to both the app and the diagrams it exports.

Editorial conclusion

Rackula is written in TypeScript and is released under the MIT license. It is versioned with CalVer and is published as a Docker image as well as a GitHub release.