A guide for configuring and using the SolarWinds Orion integration.
Related articles:
- Halo Integrator
Prerequisites
You must be using version 2020.2 or later of SolarWinds Orion to use this integration.
Enabling the Integration
To enable the SolarWinds Orion integration, navigate to Configuration > Integrations, and enable the module using the plus icon in the top right hand corner of the menu icon. Once the module has been enabled, click the menu icon to begin configuring it.
SolarWinds Orion Configuration
Trigger and reset actions can be configured for each alert that is setup in SolarWinds Orion. These trigger and reset actions can send alert information to the Halo API, allowing you to create and resolve alerts automatically whenever they are triggered or reset in SolarWinds Orion.
In the Halo setup screen for the integration, the details required to configure a trigger action and reset action are displayed. It is not possible to deviate from the samples provided.
In the "Body to Post", the following fields can be modified to include whatever information you wish:
- summary – this value will be the subject of the ticket that is created
- details – this value will be the body of the ticket that is created
- team – the name of a team in Halo that you would like to assign the new ticket to
- agent – the name of the agent in Halo that you would like to assign the new ticket to
- asset_value – a unique identifier stored against assets in Halo, so assets can be correctly linked to tickets
Underneath the example actions, you can enable authentication for the actions. By choosing basic authentication from the drop down, a username and password field will be displayed. The password field will only be displayed once, so be sure to keep it safe so it can be accessed again if needed. By generating a new password, the existing password will be rendered unusable. This username and password field can be added to the trigger and reset actions when you configure them in SolarWinds Orion.
The following article describes how to configure a trigger and reset action for an alert in SolarWinds Orion: click here
If errors are encountered when testing the alert post, more information can often be gained from the SolarWinds Orion error logs which can be found on the SolarWinds server at the following location: C:ProgramDataSolarwindsLogsOrionActionsExecutionAlert.log
Halo Configuration – Receiving Alerts:
Once a trigger and/or reset action has been configured in SolarWinds Orion, some additional options must be configured in Halo.
Firstly, if you would like to link assets to the tickets that are created, an asset matching field can be specified. This field must store the unique identifier that will be contained in the asset_value property of the trigger action. When a trigger action sends a request to Halo, a lookup is performed to find an asset that contains the value of the asset_value property. If an asset is found, it will be linked to the ticket that is created.
There is also an option to choose what ticket type new tickets should be created as, and also an option to choose a which user the new ticket should be assigned to.
Halo Configuration – Updating Alerts in SolarWinds Orion:
When a ticket has been created from a SolarWinds Orion alert, the alert can be acknowledged from within the ticket in Halo. Closing a ticket in Halo that is linked to an alert will clear the alert in SolarWinds Orion. This will suppress any configured reset actions from occurring, but if the trigger condition for the alert is met again, the alert will be triggered again.
This functionality requires you to run the Halo Integrator directly on your SolarWinds Orion server to communicate with the SolarWinds Orion API. This can be enabled within the integration setup screen in Halo.
Once enabled, you need to specify the local IP address or host name of the SolarWinds Orion server. A default username and password should also be chosen, which will be used to make requests to SolarWinds Orion. The default username and password values can be overriden per technician on the details tab on the technician configuration screen. Overriding the default values means that when a technician acknowledges/clears an alert in Halo, the alert is updated by the correct technician in SolarWinds Orion. For example, if Joe Bloggs acknowledges an alert through Halo but does not have any override credentials specified, then the alert will not show as being acknowledged by Joe Bloggs, but instead by the default user.
When viewing a ticket created from an alert, a new section will appear on the sidebar for the linked alert, showing the name of the alert that has been triggered to create the ticket and also a button to acknowledge the alert.
Clicking the "Acknowledge Alert" button will open a popup window allowing you to add a note to your acknowledgement. Once saved, this information will be saved as an action to the ticket. The Halo Integrator should then be run in the background and this acknowledgement action will be synced to SolarWinds Orion. The Halo Integrator will also process any closure actions that are added to the ticket, and will automatically close the alert in Halo.
If a reset action is triggered and sent to Halo, then the ticket will be automatically resolved for you.
