Place and manage devices in a rack
What it is
The Rack Editor shows your rack as a canvas with numbered U slots. You fill it by dragging device models (stencils) from the Library panel on the left. Selecting a device opens the Properties panel on the right. Every change saves automatically about half a second after you stop editing — watch the save indicator in the header.
The canvas opens locked to prevent accidental edits. Click Unlock in the header before placing or moving anything.
How to place a device
- Open the rack and click Unlock.
- Expand the Library panel and open a folder, or use Import to bring in Visio/SVG stencils.
- Drag a stencil onto the rack and drop it near the U position you want.
- The device snaps to the nearest U slot.
If the slot is taken you get an “Occupied unit!” message and the drop is cancelled. Same if the device would stick out of the rack (“Position out of bounds”).
Stencils marked (Half) are half-width: drop one on the left or right half of the rack, and two of them can share the same U position side by side.
How to move a device
- Click and drag the device.
- Near the rack rails it snaps to U increments; half-width devices snap to the left or right slot.
- Release. If the target collides with another device or falls outside the rack, the device returns to its previous position.
The Back view (front and rear of the rack)
The Front / Back / Both buttons in the header switch between the two faces of the rack. When you mount a device on the front, the Back view shows a generic rear for it (a dashed panel with a power inlet) — a placeholder for the real back of that device.
To set the real back panel, switch to Back and drop a rear stencil onto the generic rear: it snaps to the exact position and size of the front device and replaces the placeholder. From then on the two are a pair — the same physical device seen from both sides:
- The rear inherits the front device’s name, even when you rename it.
- Moving the front device moves its rear panel with it.
- Deleting the front device removes its rear panel too. (Undo restores both.)
Automatic pairing by name: name your stencils with matching Front / Rear suffixes — for example Cisco C9200CX-8P-2X2G Front and Cisco C9200CX-8P-2X2G Rear (the suffix Back works too, and the front stencil may also have no suffix at all, e.g. Cisco C9200CX-8P-2X2G + Cisco C9200CX-8P-2X2G Rear). When you drop the front stencil into the rack, CreaRack looks for its rear partner in your library and places it on the Back view automatically, already paired. A toast confirms it.
Changing or removing a rear panel by hand: you stay in control on racks you already built.
- Swap it — drop another rear stencil onto an existing rear panel and it replaces it (a toast confirms; Undo brings the old one back).
- Remove it — click the rear panel in the Back view to select it, then Delete in its Properties panel. The generic rear reappears.
You can also mount rear-only equipment in free rear units — the two faces are independent for collisions.
How to edit device properties
Click a device to select it. The Properties panel shows:
- Name — editable; the label on the canvas updates as you type.
- Notes — free text (serial numbers, maintenance contracts, etc.).
- Power (W) and Weight (kg) — optional per-device figures. They add up into the rack total shown in the editor header, and into each group’s totals on the dashboard (kW, % U used and kg) for capacity planning. Leave them at 0 if you don’t track them — the rack’s power total never drops below the planned Power Cons. of the rack, so partially filled-in devices don’t understate it.
- Read-only info: Original Model (the stencil it came from), Height in U, Position U, and Slot (Left/Right) for half-width devices.
- Network Mgmt — tick this checkbox to manage the device over the network. It unlocks SSH Config (IP, port, username, password — stored encrypted), SSH Terminal, SSH Backups, Refresh Ports, Compare and Device Info.
- Port Config — labels for up to 48 Ethernet ports. After Refresh Ports, the grid becomes a live table with status LED, VLAN, description, speed and mode per port.
- SFP Config — labels for up to 8 SFP ports.
Device actions
The buttons at the top of the Properties panel:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| QR | Generates a printable QR label for the device |
| Save to Lib | Saves the device as a reusable stencil in Personal Devices |
| Clone | Adds a copy of the device to the rack |
| Delete | Removes the device from the rack (asks for confirmation). As soon as the rack auto-saves, the device is deleted everywhere — its monitoring, the Terminal and its management page — and moved to the Trash on the Home page, from where it can be restored with its card, monitoring and rack position (see [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]]) |
Keyboard and mouse shortcuts
- Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y — undo / redo (also as header buttons).
- Mouse wheel — zoom the canvas.
- Drag the background — pan the view (canvas must be unlocked).
- − / + buttons next to Fit View — zoom out / in around the centre of the window.
- Fit View — recenter the rack in the window.
Related
- [[crearack—racks—crear-rack]] — create the rack first
- [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]] — restore a deleted device from the Trash
- [[crearack—racks—stencils-crear]] — create your own stencils
- [[crearack—racks—importar-visio]] — import Visio stencil libraries
- [[crearack—racks—etiquetas-qr]] — printable QR labels
- [[crearack—conceptos—rack-editor-conceptos]] — Rack Editor concepts
Véase también
- [[crearack—racks—crear-rack]]
- [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]]
- [[crearack—racks—stencils-crear]]
- [[crearack—racks—importar-visio]]
- [[crearack—racks—etiquetas-qr]]
- [[crearack—conceptos—rack-editor-conceptos]]