Inputs.http Unable to Login

Telegraf
1

I am trying to get a config file running using inputs.http and keep getting a 401 Unauthorized from our device. The device type has a requirement that you have to login via post to authenticate before being able to run a get against it. As long as you keep running gets it will not log you out. However, that first post I can’t seem to configure correctly. I am able to run a curl from the same server with success, so shouldn’t be a firewall issue. This is the body after our agent section, wondering if I am missing some type of formatting that would be passing the password or username weirdly? Tried turning on debug = true in the agent and telegraf config but both simply show me the same 401, not the actual data being passed.

[[outputs.file]]

Files to write to, “stdout” is a specially handled file.

files = [“stdout”, “/tmp/metrics.out”]
data_format = “influx”

[[inputs.http]]
urls = [‘device:443/rest/json/login’]

method = “POST”
data_format = “json”
body = “{‘user’:‘user’,‘password’:‘password’}”
timeout = “5s”

data_format = “influx”

insecure_skip_verify = true

Example Code from Vendor doc for API login:

HTTP Request:
Resource URL: /login
HTTP Method: POST
Content type: application/json
Data: {
“user”: “”,
“password”: “”
}

HTTP Response:
HTTP code 200 – for successful login
HTTP code 401 – invalid user name or password

2

Hi,

It sounds like you need a cookie? In which case you could use the various cookie config options:

  ## Optional Cookie authentication
  # cookie_auth_url = "https://localhost/authMe"
  # cookie_auth_method = "POST"
  # cookie_auth_username = "username"
  # cookie_auth_password = "pa$$word"
  # cookie_auth_headers = { Content-Type = "application/json", X-MY-HEADER = "hello" }
  # cookie_auth_body = '{"username": "user", "password": "pa$$word", "authenticate": "me"}'
  ## cookie_auth_renewal not set or set to "0" will auth once and never renew the cookie
  # cookie_auth_renewal = "5m"
1 Like
3

Funny thing, I actually tried that right after posting that question but can’t get it to work either. For some reason it thinks that I do not have all the parameters set. I keep getting:

[telegraf] Error running agent: Error loading config file /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf: plugin inputs.http: line 30: configuration specified the fields [“cookie_auth_password” “cookie_auth_headers” “cookie_auth_body” “cookie_auth_url” “cookie_auth_method” “cookie_auth_username”], but they weren’t used

Our config has all of it (I thought):

Optional Cookie authentication

cookie_auth_url = “URL”
cookie_auth_method = “POST”
cookie_auth_username = “username”
cookie_auth_password = “password”
cookie_auth_headers = { Content-Type = “application/json” }
cookie_auth_body = ‘{“username”: “username”, “password”: “password”}’

cookie_auth_renewal not set or set to “0” will auth once and never renew the cookie

cookie_auth_renewal = “5m”

Based on that first example code from the vendor I may have to change “username” to “user”, but need to get telegraf to accept what I am passing it first.

4

What version of telegraf are you using? That error usually means you are running too old of a version to use those config options, are you put the config options in the wrong spot.

5

./telegraf --version
Telegraf 1.19.1 (git: HEAD 9f8be047)

6

That is a pretty old version of Telegraf.

It looks like support as added in feat: support headers for http plugin with cookie auth by conorevans · Pull Request #10404 · influxdata/telegraf · GitHub which went into v1.22.0.

7

Gotcha. Is there a specific document or way that upgrading is recommended?

8

Actually you can ignore that question. I was able to upgrade to 1.30.1 now and instead get a 400 bad request when running the same config.

9

Sweet just a couple more syntax problems and I am all up and running. Thanks again for the help @jpowers

1 Like