SolarWinds N-Central Integration
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Hello,
There seem to be old requests mentioning SolarWinds integration, but they are geared toward Orion or other products.
This request is specific for SolarWinds N-Central integration which would be very useful.
Server APIs are listed here https://documentation.n-able.com/N-central/userguide/Content/Further_Reading/API_Level_Integration/API_Integration_WebServiceLevel.html
The ability to start RDP session from the n-central console triggers a small locally installed app called "Custom Protocol Handler" (CPH for short)
The app establishes a proxy tunnel via the n-central server and then generates rdp file which is started via the windows RDP app.
It would be very useful if we can link RDP icons to the corresponding N-Central Server object.
My idea for this integration is to have a VPN RDM entry that represents the N-Central server that can be linked to any RDP, SSH, or Telnet RDM entry.
VPN entry will require N-Central server URL and the custom protocol handler install path along with auth information.
Once the RDP entry is matched with the server object in N-Central, RDM will have to start the CPH and intercept the request to start the native RDP client or maybe CPH has command line params that can be used.
Searching for the correct server in N-central can be either dynamically by matching the host value provided in RDP entry or manually.
Manual process can be done during the linking of the RDP entry with the VPN entry in RDM by querying the list of servers and asking the user to select one.
Hopefully others are interested in such integration.
Thanks!
All Comments (3)
Hello,
Looking at the documentation you linked, I wasn't able to find anything on the Web Service level. The closest I could find to what you're describing is on the URL level, there's an URL example for how to "launch device remote control". https://documentation.n-able.com/N-central/userguide/Content/Further_Reading/API_Level_Integration/API_Integration_URLLevel.html
The example URL:
https://serverName/deepLinkAction.do?method=deviceRC&username=<username>&password=<password>&customerID=<customerID>&deviceID=<deviceID>&language=<language>
Do you know if executing this connects how you would expect? It seems to take credentials, a customerID, and a deviceID.
On the WebService level, there seems to be a method both to get the list of customers and get the list of devices, so on that end I think we have what we need.
I don't see anything else relating to starting a session. I'm not familiar with N-Able's products, so maybe the terminology they use is different than what I'm expecting.
Regards,
Hubert Mireault
Hello,
Yes, if I am already authenticated with N-Central server, opening this URL below starts the installed custom protocol handler app and starts the remote session.
https://serverName/deepLinkAction.do?method=deviceRC&username=<username>&deviceID=<deviceID>
The above URL opens a link URL:swncrc:ackToken=<TOKEN>&version=1xx.x.x.x¶meters=<BASE64_ENCODED>
The app url swncrc: is associated with the "Custom Protocol Handler" app automatically.
But the app can be invoked by passing the swncrc: string directly to the executable, like this:
Protocol Handler.exe swncrc:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you can get the access token and the listening port from the swncrc: string you can probably use RDM to establish ssh tunnel and connect to the desired server. and skip the app.
Thansk!
Thanks for the details! We will have to try and get a setup for N-central internally if we'd like to integrate this. We'll see what we can do.
Regards,
Hubert Mireault