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SWQL Studio certificate login HOWTO?

Hi folks,

Our Solarwinds estate is in Azure and our security dictates that local accounts on anything aren't allowed. To this end I implemented SAML authentication for the web GUI which works fine but doesn't for SWQL Studio, this is a known limitation.

I also can't use AD auth because we're using SAML so all the Windows accounts are also disabled.

The only thing I CAN use is certificate login, but I can't for the life of me find any info on what certificate should be used?

Is anyone using cert auth for SWQL Studio?

Cheers

Adrian

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adam.beedell

I'm using it at the moment, guide below, before you read that though.

If using the certs, you must protect these certs as if they were the highest value asset in your estate. It's possible to have alerting/reporting looking after a service account in a way that's much harder to do with a certificate, it has an affect of anonymising stuff to some extent. Also if you mess up the certificates and you have agents it's quite a pain. Consider the security posture of the various methods with your security guys.

Setting Up SolarWinds SWQL Studio with the Orion (v3) Certificate

Overview:

This guide will walk you through the process of exporting the Orion (v3) Certificate from the SolarWinds MPE Server and then setting up SolarWinds SWQL Studio on other machines to use this certificate for authentication.

Export the Certificate:

1. Login to the SolarWinds MPE (Main Polling Engine) Server:

2. Click on Start and search for "Manage Computer Certificates".

3. In the opened MMC Window, navigate to: Computers > Personal > SolarWinds-Orion.

4. Right-click and choose to export the certificate, ensuring you include the private key.

5. When prompted, set a secure password for the certificate export.

6. Continue with the export process by clicking "Next" until the certificate is successfully exported.

Transfer & Install the Certificate:

1. Copy the Exported Certificate to the required machine

2. On the target machine, right click on the certificate, click "install"

3. Ensure you select the "Local Machine" option (Note: Admin permissions are required).

4. Follow the on-screen instructions until you receive a confirmation that the import was successful.

Testing SolarWinds SWQL Connection:

1. Launch SWQL Studio with administrative privileges.

2. Configure the connection to target the SolarWinds MPE Server.

3. For authentication, select the "Orion (V3) Certificate" option.

4. Click Login, and this should be successful.

fop

So it IS that certificate? That's bonkers, utterly bonkers. SWQL Studio is supposed to be a tool you can give to non-admins if the need arises. I've already got it working by doing that but thought that CAN'T be the only secure way of doing things and there must be a way of generating your own cert.

My users can't have it in that case, which is a shame. It's like modern dashboards being editable by their owner even if you've got 'manage dashboards' turned off in their profile. This means we can't let customers have their own modern dashboard, I have to use classic instead.

Cheers Adam