Web clients serialize empty form fields as "" while unset values are
stored as None on the node. The bare != diff in the update handler then
sees a phantom change on every full PUT and recreates the container for
nothing -- even when the user only changed a controller-only field such
as netmiko_device_type.
Normalize at the schema boundary ("" -> None for start_command,
environment and extra_hosts; "" -> "/" for console_http_path), make
the setters apply the same canonicalization, and create nodes through
the setters instead of bypassing them in __init__ so both paths store
identical values.
Add an `extra_configs` field (list of {target, content}) to the docker
node/template/appliance schemas. For each entry GNS3 writes `content` to a
file in the node working directory and bind-mounts it read-only at `target`
inside the container.
This lets a NOS appliance seed its startup config without rebuilding the
image: XRd points XR_FIRST_BOOT_CONFIG at an injected /firstboot.cfg, FRR at
/etc/frr/frr.conf, etc. The bind is a single-file mount applied at create
time, so it works for both the generic init.sh path and vendor nodes that
skip init.sh (console_type=docker_exec). Entries are only injected when
present, so ordinary nodes are unaffected.
The content can't go through `environment` (it is line-delimited, one var per
line), hence a dedicated field -- the same plumbing shape as extra_volumes.