Hey everyone. I searched around some on this but didn't see anything.
Did the DirectLink account functionality stop working in the recent 8.5 version or Orion? We upgrade from 8.1 to 8.5 and all of the external custom web pages we had built can no longer access graphs via direct URL links. They require that the user log into Solarwinds first. Which is really painful for us.
We have several custom php pages that snag graphs out of Orion via direct URL's and DirectLink made that really awesome.
Thanks for any help.
We have the same issue.. and haven't found a way around it yet...
here is some sample html we use on one of many dashboards that don't work any longer...
<html>
<head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"><title>Dashboard</title></head>
<body bgcolor="#336699" link="#FFFFFF" vlink="#FFFFFF" alink="#FFFFFF" text="#FFFFFF" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" rightmargin="0" bottommargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
<div align="center">
<table border="0" id="table1" cellpadding="2" width="1214"> <tr> <td> <font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial" size="1"> <img border="0" src="HCR.bmp" width="300" height="40"></font><b><i><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial" size="2">LAN / WAN Performance Dashboard</font></i></b></td> <td width="191"> <ul> <li><font face="Arial" size="1" color="#FFFFFF"> <a href="http://orion/NetPerfMon/SummaryView.aspx?NetObject=?&AccountID=pe&Password=pe"> ORION</a></font></li> <li><font face="Arial" size="1" color="#FFFFFF"> <a href="WHAT'S">http://whatsup/">WHAT'S UP</a></font></li> <li><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="verizon/'>http://customercenter.verizonbusiness.com">Verizon Customer Center</a></font></li> </ul> </td> <td width="200" valign="top"> <ul> <li><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="magichttp://pmagapp01">Magic</a></font></li> <li><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="http://ingrmon1.hcr-manorcare.com/NetPerfMon/View.asp?NetObject=&accountid=hcr&password=hcr"> Server Monitoring</a></font></li> <li><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="Password'>https://par.hcr-manorcare.com/par">Password Repository</a></font></li> </ul> </td> <td width="141" valign="top"> <ul> <li> <p align="left"><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="https://portal.mss.verisign.com/portal/login.do"> Verisign Portal</a></font></li> <li><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="f5/'>https://bigip1.hcr-manorcare.com">F5 BIG IP Login</a></font></li> <li><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="Web'>http://whatsup/tools.asp">Web Based IP Tools</a></font></li> </ul> </td> <td width="19"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="855">
<font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial" size="1">
<a href="http://orion/NetPerfMon/View.asp?AccountID=pe&Password=pe&View=NodeDetails&NetObject=N:321">
<img border="0" src="http://orion/NetPerfMon/Chart.asp?AccountID=pe&Password=pe&Chart=MMAVGBPS&NetObject=I:3759&Width=600&Period=Last 24 Hours&SampleSize=15M&Style=Default" width="600" height="372"></a></font></td> <td width="345" colspan="4"> <font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial" size="1">
<a href="http://orion/NetPerfMon/View.asp?AccountID=pe&Password=pe&View=NodeDetails&NetObject=N:320">
<img border="0" src="http://orion/NetPerfMon/Chart.asp?AccountID=pe&Password=pe&Chart=MMAVGBPS&NetObject=I:3725&Width=600&Period=Last 24 Hours&SampleSize=15M&Style=Default" width="600" height="372"></a></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="1200" colspan="5"> <table border="0" id="table2" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="3" width="1209"> <tr> <td> <p> </td> <td><font face="Arial" size="1">Ping time to Raintree<br> <img border="0" src="http://orion/NetPerfMon/Gauge.asp?AccountID=pe&Password=pe&Style=Radial&NetObject=N:380&Property=AvgResponseTime&Scale=>" align="top"></font>
</font>
</td> <td align="left" valign="top"><ul> <li> <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="http://orion/NetPerfMon/View.asp?AccountID=pe&password=pe&ViewName=Current Top 10 Lists">TOP 10 List (Orion)</a></font></b></li> <li> <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial" size="1"><a href="RaintreeSites.htm">Raintree Dashboard</a></font></b></li> <li> <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial" size="1"><a href="PSFS.htm">PeopleSoft Dashboard</a></font></b><br> </li> <li> <p><b><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a target="_blank" href="../../LAN_WAN_Team">LAN/WAN Folder</a></font></b></li> <li> <p><font size="1" face="Arial"> <a target="_blank" href="../../1%20Circuit%20Orders">Master U List</a></font><br> </li> <li> <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial" size="1"><a href="device/'>https://audit02">Device Authority</a></font></b></li> <li> <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial" size="1"> <a href="Prowatch'>http://prowatch.netsolve.com/">Prowatch Portal</a></font></b></li></ul><p> </td> <td align="left" valign="top"><font face="Arial" size="1">Craig's Desk</font><br>
<applet codebase="http://172.16.130.51:8080/" code="mJPEG.class" archive="streaming.jar" id="webcamXP" width="320" height="240" hspace="0" vspace="0" align="top" refresh="70" filename="cam_1.mjpg"></applet> <td align="left" valign="top">
<font face="Arial" size="1">Who is visiting Craig</font> <br>
<applet codebase="http://172.16.130.51:8080/" code="mJPEG.class" archive="streaming.jar" id="webcamXP" width="320" height="240" hspace="0" vspace="0" align="top" refresh="70" filename="cam_2.mjpg"></applet>
</td> </tr> </table>
</td> </tr> </table> </div>
</body>
</html>
hmmm... I have a similar issue whereby, after upgrading to 8.5, passing login information via URL no longer works. Do others with auto login issues have a separate web server? There are still issues in 8.5 with getting data onto the web server (reports schema still has to be copied manually, for example) and the separate web server has always seemed to be the red-headed step child of the system...
Will
We aren't using a seperate web server yet (its on the list) but this is VERY frustrating as we have a large number of reports that are completely messed up. We use our PHP servers to custom build reports that can't be done in Orion. We are even finding that trying to use curl to poll detached node information is returning a OBJECT MOVED TO HERE that provides a broken link back to the login page, rather then the web page we are asking for. This all worked prior to version 8.5
SW, PLEASE respond to this issue and acknowledge if this is a bug, or a change of direction by Solarwinds developers. Hopefully its not the later.
The change is not intentional. We'll try to hotfix this as soon as possible.
Denny LeCompte Sr. Product Manager, Orion SolarWinds Austin, TX
I tested the functionality of adding &AccountID=account&Password=password to the URL. It still works in 8.5, but unfortunately it's more complicated than it was in 8.1. In 8.1, if you included the AccountID and Password in the query string, you just got the page or image with no fuss. In 8.5, as you observed, you get redirected to the Login page. But notice that the AccountID and Password are still in the query string that the login page gets. If you follow the redirect, the login page will notice that accountID and password and redirect you again back to the page you originally requested, this time setting an authentication cookie.
By default, curl ignores redirects and cookies, so it will just spit out the html redirecting you to the login page. If you add the "-L" option, it will follow the redirects. But since it is still ignoring cookies, it will just bounce between the original page and the login page until it hits the redirect limit (50) and errors out. But if you add "-c cookies.txt", then curl will respect the cookies and work as you want. I have used this to successfully fetch graphs and gauges from Orion 8.5 this way. You can safely delete the cookies.txt file after every request - it only needs to last long enough to transfer the authentication information from the login page back to the original page.
There's another tool called "wget" that is similar in operation to curl, but it follows redirects and tracks cookies by default. That's what I normally use for this sort of testing (long habit), so I didn't realize the extra options would be needed to get curl working. Fortunately, curl has a very useful verbose mode (-v) that will show you all of the headers returned from the web server. If "-L" and "-c cookies.txt" aren't enough to get it working for you, I suggest adding -v and posting the results in this thread.
That covers fetching pages and images with curl. There are two other cases to consider: linking from one web page to an Orion page in such a way as to bypass the login screen (this seems to work fine for me), and embedding an Orion image (graph, map, or gauge) into a non-Orion web page (this also works for me). My hope is that by testing with curl you will uncover any issues that prevent these two cases from working.
Tim DannerSolarWinds Development Team
Update: I found a real problem with this. If AccountID and Password are the first items after the ? in the query string, then it doesn't work. I'll get that entered as a bug. As a workaround, you can either move AccountID and Password to the end of the URL, or just stick a dummy value ("foo=bar" at the beginning.
I'd really rather they just fix the problem then me kludging around it since it was introduced in 8.5. We are already using curl pretty extensively but for pulling pages like Detatched links such as: http://solarwinds/NetPerfMon/DetachResource.asp?ResourceID=XX&NetObject=&Width=0 doesn't work no matter what I try, even using Curl modifications.I'm also not overly excited about re-writing all our code to modify every curl statement so it does these things.Thanks for the information though these are great work arounds, but i'd rather solarwinds just fixes the introduced issue.
I'd really rather they just fix the problem then me kludging around it since it was introduced in 8.5. We are already using curl pretty extensively but for pulling pages like Detatched links such as: http://solarwinds/NetPerfMon/DetachResource.asp?ResourceID=XX&NetObject=&Width=0 doesn't work no matter what I try, even using Curl modifications.
I'm also not overly excited about re-writing all our code to modify every curl statement so it does these things.
Thanks for the information though these are great work arounds, but i'd rather solarwinds just fixes the introduced issue.
I'm sorry this is causing inconvenience for you. It's a consequence of our decision to switch to ASP.NET and it use its user authentication system rather than the home-grown one the old ASP-based website used. It's more secure this way (in the old system, every page had to include some boilerplate "check the login" code or it would be wide open!), but it does complicate some of the neat features of the old system.
I tried to reproduce the problem you describe with DetachResource.asp not working. It works fine for me. Could you give more details? What resource did you test this with?
We have lots of pages that pull graphs out of SW taking advantage of the DirectLink account, so those are all going to have to be recoded to either use curl or if it works passing account information via the URL, which I really don't like doing.
An example of the curl in use would be something like grabbing the Polling Server Status page data and inserting it into a portal or another web page. This one: http://solarwinds/NetPerfMon/DetachResource.asp?ResourceID=94&NetObject=&Width=0
Maybe you can send an example of the curl you used, because i messed with it and can't get it to work. It consistently returns me to the login.aspx page. I've been using the DirectLink account with no password for the moment.
If this is the direction SW is headed better to know now and fix all this stuff before i have twice as much of it down the road.
Thanks for your help
I need to apologize here. When I did my investigation and replying yesterday I completely forgot about the account called "DirectLink" - I was thinking that "DirectLink" just referred to putting the AccountID and Password in the URL.
Using the DirectLink account is in fact broken in 8.5. The bug has been entered and we'll get it fixed soon.
We too use the direct passing of URL to login to Solarwinds directly and with the upgrade to 8.5 the URL does not login a user, it send that user directly to the login screen. I did some additional checking and it seems a change in the URL parameter is necessary which is different from 8.1 to 8.5
8.1 URL = ?AccountID=account&Password=password
8.5 URL = &AccountID=account&Password=password
Note the 1st character change.
I am not sure this is all that has changed, but it allowed us to do URL authentication again to the front-end web server for our users. This might help.
Tim, this is good news...at least for me. Hopefully this hotfix will be out soon, saves me a bunch of re-work.
Thanks again for all your help and info. I appreciate the quick response from SW in these forums