Resolved: Remove Telnet and HTTP links from Node Details Resource

I was asked today by our Information Protection Security admin why there is a link for 'Telnet' and 'HTTP' connections for all nodes showing in our Orion deployment and basically, anyone can click those links...

This is a good question since 'Telnet' Is NOT permitted and HTTP for nodes is not permitted. We are using SSH for access and Orion and the Orion web console are HTTPS only.

So has anyone been successful in getting rid of the Telnet and HTTP links at the bottom of the Node Details Resource? Is this possible? Or is there a resource just like the Node Details resource that doesn't have these links in them?

edited: 7-12-19

I have opened two different support cases on this issue and what support is telling me is......

The links for Telnet and HTTP at the bottom of the Node Details Resource are coded and can't be removed in NPM Ver 12.x or later
If I want something similar I will have to create it myself using a custom html resource

If the SolarWinds Orion developers read these this is an easy thing to do. We don't use Telnet or HTTP to access any nodes in our environment so these links are of no use to us or the admins. Secondly, the security folks don't like having those links showing on our pages which makes accessing equipment that much easier. Or here's another idea just create a more 'Basic' Node Details Resource that has all of the same information except the Telnet and HTTP links...

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Accepted answers

k1gaudineer

Sorry for the delayed response in getting back to this. I wanted to discuss this topic and this specific proposed solution at a couple of team meetings. As a team, we still believe this solution will not work for us. This solution would have been ideal a few years ago but we have done a lot of expanding in recent years. We have a large deployment and editing files that will become overwritten can become a cumbersome administrative task. Our deployment has 19 pollers and 3 additional web servers servicing 3 states. After a lot of digging and searching for resources on different views, I think we have found our solution.

There is a resource (Widget) that can be added to a summary view and that resource is called "Selected Node Properties". This resource is blank when first added. However, when the edit link is selected you are presented with a very large list of properties and all that needs to be done is to go down the list and simply check the ones that you want. All of the Node Details properties are on this list. You can basically recreate the 'Node Details' resource with the Selected Node Properties Resource and leave out the Telnet and HTTP links.

The disadvantage of the "Selected Nodes Properties" resource is that the display of the selected properties is in the order they are presented when making the selections and the resource is only 2 columns wide. As an example, the Vendor line in the old Node Details resource would be formatted like Vendor (vendor icon) Vendor name or Status (LED icon) Text status desc. With the Selected Node Properties resource being 2 columns wide having a line with 3 items isn't possible and the order of the items listed is different than the old Node Details resource. But at the end of the day, these were small differences and getting the customer base accustomed to looking at the same information but presented in a different way didn't turn out to be that difficult.

I would like to see more development with this resource, however. Since we can pick and choose what Node Detail properties we want to see It would be nice to take this to the next step and actually let us choose how we want those choices to be displayed in that resource. i.e. Number of columns and what's in each column....

All comments

wluther

k1gaudineer While I'm not sure if you can simply disable either of those options, I know the web link can be altered via the SDK/API or settings. As for both of them, there is a fairly simple way to just remove them completely from that resource/widget.

Here is my before:

And here is my After:

The following file is what builds that "Node Details" widget.

\inetpub\SolarWinds\Orion\NetPerfMon\Resources\NodeDetails\NodeDetails.ascx

If you open up that file in your favorite text editor, you can simply remove/edit the lines which create the telnet and web browse entries. (lines 218 & 224)

When you save those edits, and refresh your page, you should be able to see less/different data.

Additionally, you could use the SDK/API to change the following web browser entries. (You should be able to use HTTPS here too, if you wish)

SELECT NodeID, SettingName, SettingValue, NodeSettingID
FROM Orion.NodeSettings
WHERE SettingName='Core.WebBrowseTemplate'

Depending on how you have things setup and configured in your environment, you may need to follow a few additional steps to be able to access the "NodeDetails.ascx" file which you will need to edit.

Those instructions, which are very simple, yet do require the config wizard to be re-ran for the website, will bring back all the system/default files, making them accessible once again.

Disable Precompiled Web Pages; Making Custom Mods Great Again!

Please let us know if this helps, or if you need any further assistance.

Thank you,

-Will

k1gaudineer

Wluther

Thank you for the response. What version of Orion are you running? During one of the WebEx sessions with support I remember talking about making the edits you suggest, I may have been referencing your solution during that conversation, in any event, the file you mention is not in that folder location with (2018.4 HF3) I believe that's NPM 12.4 HF3..... We have the NAM licensing model so my ver number is 2018.4. With that said the support rep told me that even if I were to edit that file the next the config wiz is run and the inetpud folder is rebuilt that file will get overwritten and need to be edited again.

wluther

k1gaudineer If you do not see any files in those inetpub sub-folders, check your config wizard settings/file (\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\ConfigurationWizard.exe.config).

On/around line 24 you should see something about "PrecompiledWebsiteDisabled".

The current/default value is set as "false".

Change this:

To this:

That is the file/setting which determines if your system will show you those files. In my experience, I rarely see this setting reverted after upgrades.

You are correct, however, when it comes to running the config wizard, any customization you have done to any/all system files (other than these .config type files) will revert to the way they are packed.

Having said that, and not really having any other modifications to your system, once those files are visible, you can edit them without running the config wizard. The CW is only required once, which is to make the system files visible.

It would be nice to have the option to disable various lines throughout the widgets in a native manner. However, I'm thinking this is going to be the quickest way to achieve your goal(s) right now.

If you have/use SCM, you can use it to help keep track of your changes. Primary Default SolarWinds Files Used To Customize Deployment

Additionally, if you have a few moments to spare, make sure to check out the UX page, and let them know about things you'd like to see. The more folks we can get to rally behind a feature request, fix something, or add something which is missing, the better they can allocate time and resources to making it happen. User Experience

Let us know how it goes.

-Will

k1gaudineer