This knowledgebase article shows you how to setup the SCOM backend data source plugin for Grafana.
This guide is written for installing the plugin on Grafana running on Linux. But at the bottom of this article there is a guide on how you do it if you run Grafan on Windows. So in that case you replace the steps 4-6 with the steps for Windows instead.
1. Make sure you have the SCOM Web Console installed.
2. Open IIS on the server that has the SCOM Web Console installed and click on the Web Site in which the SCOM Web Console is installed (Default Web Site in our example) (1), and then select the "OperationsManager" application (2). Now double click Authentication (3).
3. Make sure that "Basic Authentication" is enabled. Note: If you don't see basic authentication in the list, you can add it in Add/Remove Features.
4. Assuming you installed your Grafana server on Linux (our example uses Ubuntu 22.04), copy the plugin Zip file to your server. If you have installed Grafana on Windows proceed to step 7 for instructions how to install the plugin.
Note: You can find more information on installing plugin's on this page: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/administration/plugin-management/#plugin-catalog
5. Now unzip the content of the ZIP file to the Grafana plugin directory by issuing the command below on your Grafana server.
sudo unzip /home/opslogix/opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource-1.0.0 -d /var/lib/grafana/plugins/
6. Restart the Grafana
sudo systemctl restart grafana-server
7. Open a browser and open Grafana with an admin account, the use the menu to navigate to Connections -> Data Sources.
8. In the Search box type "SCOM" and click the "SCOM Plugin by Opslogix"
9. Enter the server url for the SCOM Management Server on which the Web Console is installed, in the example it is https://devvm02.contoso.com. Then enter the user name and password in the appropriate fields. If you are connecting to a source with a self-signed TLS certificate, check the box to skip TLS cert validation. Click the "Save & test" button. If all is successful you will receive a message that the datasource is working.
10. The plugin is now configured and ready to be used for creating dashboards.
Installing the plugin on Grafana for Windows
1. Download the plugin (should be named opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource-<version>.zip)
2. Extract the downloaded zip file
3. Copy the extracted folder (the complete folder named opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource-<version>) to the plugin directory for grafana (by default C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\data\plugins)
The important bit is to make sure that the zip file don’t have nested folders. If that is the case then you need to modify and remove the nested folder. The folder structure in the opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource-<version> should look similar to this:
4. Since this plugin is unsigned we must add this to allowed in Grafana config. Go to the folder where the config for Grafana is located (by default C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\conf)
5. Open the file custom.ini and if that doesn’t exist create a new file named custom.ini and open that.
- If you have an existing custom.ini file search for [plugins] section and the row starting with allow_loading_unsigned_plugins and then add the opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource (allow_loading_unsigned_plugins = opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource). If you already have a plugin listed here you separate these with a comma sign. If you don’t find the plugin section add the following text to the file:
[plugins]
allow_loading_unsigned_plugins = opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource
After you changed it save the file. - If you created the custom.ini file you add the following section to the file and save it
[plugins]
allow_loading_unsigned_plugins = opslogix-scompluginbyopslogix-datasource
6. Restart Grafana by restaring the Grafana service. This can be done in a command prompt with the following command:
net stop Grafana
net start Grafana
7. After this the plugin shall be visible in Grafana and can be configured and used.