SolarWinds

StackState Self-hosted v5.1.x

Overview

The SolarWinds StackPack allows near real time synchronization between SolarWinds Orion (SolarWinds) and StackState. When the integration is enabled, SolarWinds nodes, interfaces and connections will be added to the StackState topology as components and relations. In addition, health status is applied to the components in StackState.

SolarWinds is a StackState curated integration.

Data flow

• Agent V3 connects to the configured SolarWinds API (default via TCP port 17778).
• Nodes, interfaces and connections are retrieved from the SolarWinds instance.

• Node and interface Health status is retrieved from the SolarWinds instance and translated to StackState values.

• Agent V3 pushes retrieved data to StackState.
• StackState translates incoming nodes, interfaces and connections into topology components and relations.

Setup

Prerequisites

To set up the SolarWinds integration you will need to have:

• StackState Agent V3 installed on a machine that can connect to both SolarWinds (default via TCP port 17778) and StackState.
• A running SolarWinds instance with correctly configured Network Performance Monitor (NPM) and User Device Tracker (UDT) modules. For details see retrieved topology data.
• A SolarWinds user with access to the required API endpoints.

  • The lowest access level is sufficient.

  • The user must not have any account limitations set that block access to nodes intended to be retrieved.

• A SolarWinds administrator needs to be available to add custom node properties.

Additionally, for some optional features you will need:

• To see relations between components, a layer 3 network device is required.

• To support component actions from StackState, the SolarWinds server needs to be accessible from the user's browser.

Install

Install the SolarWinds StackPack from the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations screen. You will need to enter the following details:

• SolarWinds Instance URL: The SolarWinds instance URL from which topology data will be collected.

• SolarWinds Instance Name: The user-defined name of the SolarWinds account shown in configurations such as views.

Configure

To enable the SolarWinds check and begin collecting data from SolarWinds, add the following configuration to StackState Agent V3:

1. Edit the Agent integration configuration file /etc/stackstate-agent/conf.d/solarwinds.d/conf.yaml to include details of your SolarWinds instance:

   • url - the REST API URL, uses HTTPS protocol for communication. This should be a hostname or IP, it should not include the prefix https://.

   • user - a SolarWinds user with access to the required SolarWinds API endpoints.
   • password - use secrets management to store passwords outside the configuration file.

   init_config:
   
   instances:
     - url: <instance_name.solarwinds.localdomain>
       username: <instance_username>
       password: <instance_password>
       solarwinds_domain: <instance_domain>  # A SolarWinds custom property
       solarwinds_domain_values:  # A list of values used by the solarwinds_domain
         - <instance_domain_value_1>
         - <instance_domain_value_2>
         - <instance_domain_value_n>
       # min_collection_interval: 30 # use in place of collection_interval for Agent V2.14.x or earlier 
       collection_interval: 30

2. Set the following filters:

   • solarwinds_domain - The name of a SolarWinds custom property that will be used to select nodes from SolarWinds to include in the StackState dataset.

   • solarwinds_domain_values - A list of values used by the SolarWinds custom property specified in solarwinds_domain. Used to select the correct nodes for inclusion. Any node in SolarWinds that has one of these values set will be included in the data collection. Each value in this list will be represented as a separate domain in StackState.

3. Restart StackState Agent V3 to apply the configuration changes.
4. Once the Agent has restarted, wait for data to be collected from SolarWinds and sent to StackState.

Status

To check the status of the SolarWinds integration, run the status subcommand and look for SolarWinds under Running Checks:

sudo stackstate-agent status

Upgrade

When a new version of the SolarWinds StackPack is available in your instance of StackState, you will be prompted to upgrade in the StackState UI on the page StackPacks > Integrations > SolarWinds. For an overview of recent StackPack updates, check the StackPack versions shipped with each StackState release.

For considerations and instructions on upgrading a StackPack, see how to upgrade a StackPack.

Integration details

REST API endpoints

The SolarWinds user configured in StackState must have read access to the SolarWinds API (default for all user accounts). No additional authorization needs to be set for this account in the SolarWinds system.

Refer to the SolarWinds product documentation for details on how to Manage Orion Web Console user accounts in the Orion Platform (documentation.solarwinds.com).

Data retrieved

Events

The SolarWinds check doesn't retrieve any event data.

Metrics

The SolarWinds check doesn't retrieve any metrics data.

Topology

The SolarWinds server can contain different modules suitable for data retrieval by the StackState SolarWinds integration.

• Network Performance Monitor (NPM) module - provides information about nodes, interfaces and layer-2 topology information for network devices. Layer-2 topology information for non-network devices is only available when the User Device Tracker (UDT) SolarWinds module is installed.

• User Device Tracker (UDT) module - provides layer-2 topology information for non-network devices in the form of MAC-address tables from routers, switches and firewalls. This is added to the data retrieved from NPM, resulting in a complete topology for all SolarWinds nodes.

The SolarWinds check retrieves the following topology data from SolarWinds:

Data	Description
Components	Nodes and interfaces. In some cases, a SolarWinds node won't show any interfaces in the SolarWinds system. If UDT detects that such a node is connected to a device, a 'ghost' interface will be created in StackState to show the full topology.
Relations	NPM: Layer-2 topology information from network devices. UDT: Layer-2 topology information connecting generic nodes to network devices

Health

The SolarWinds check retrieves the health status from nodes and interfaces and translates these statuses to StackState statuses:

SolarWinds Health status	StackState Health state
Up	CLEAR
External	CLEAR
Unmanaged	CLEAR
Unreachable	CLEAR
Shutdown	CLEAR
Warning	DEVIATING
Unknown	DEVIATING
Down	CRITICAL
Critical	CRITICAL

The configured collection_interval will be used as the repeat_interval for the health synchronization. Make sure that the value set for the collection_interval matches the time that the check will take to run.

Traces

The SolarWinds check doesn't retrieve any trace data.

StackState views

When the SolarWinds integration is enabled, the following SolarWinds specific views are available in StackState:

• Node Details

• Interface Details

Component actions

To support component actions from StackState, the SolarWinds server needs to be accessible from the user's browser.

Links to SolarWinds detail dashboards are created as component actions attached to SolarWinds components. This allows users to easily access more information from SolarWinds when needed.

Open source

The code for the StackState SolarWinds StackPack and check are open source and available on GitHub:

• SolarWinds StackPack: https://github.com/StackVista/stackpack-solarwinds
• SolarWinds check: https://github.com/StackVista/stackstate-agent-integrations/tree/master/solarwinds

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting steps for any known issues can be found in the StackState support Knowledge base.

Uninstall

To uninstall the SolarWinds StackPack and disable the Dynatrace check:

1. Go to the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations > SolarWinds screen and click UNINSTALL.

   • All SolarWinds specific configuration will be removed from StackState.

2. Remove or rename the Agent integration configuration file, for example:

    mv solarwinds.d/conf.yaml solarwinds.d/conf.yaml.bak

3. Restart StackState to apply the configuration changes.

Release notes

The SolarWinds StackPack release notes are available on GitHub.

See also

• StackState
• Secrets management
• SolarWinds StackPack (github.com)
• StackState Agent integrations - SolarWinds (github.com)
• Manage Orion Web Console user accounts in the Orion Platform (documentation.solarwinds.com)