This documentation describes how the Icinga CGIs decide who has access to view monitoring and configuration information, and who can submit commands to the Icinga daemon through the web interface.
Before continuing, it is important that you understand the meaning of and difference between authenticated users and authenticated contacts:
An authenticated user is someone who has authenticated to the web server with a username and password and has been granted access to the Icinga web interface.
An authenticated contact is an authenticated user whose username matches the short name of a contact definition.
Assuming you configured your web server as described in the quickstart guide, it should require that you authenticate before accessing the Icinga CGIs. You should also have one user account (icingaadmin) that can access the CGIs.
As you define more contacts for receiving host and service notifications, you'll most likely want to let them access the Icinga web interface. You can use the following command to add additional users who can authenticate to the CGIs. Replace <username> with the actual username you want to add. In most cases, the username should match the short name of a contact that has been defined.
htpasswd /usr/local/icinga/etc/htpasswd.users <username>
The next thing you need to do is make sure that the CGIs are configured to use the authentication and authorization functionality in determining what information and/or commands users have access to. This is done be setting the use_authentication variable in the CGI configuration file to a non-zero value. Example:
use_authentication=1
Okay, you're now done with setting up basic authentication/authorization functionality in the CGIs.
So what default permissions do users have in the CGIs by default when the authentication/authorization functionality is enabled?
CGI Data |
Authenticated Contacts * |
Other Authenticated Users * |
Host Status Information |
Yes |
No |
Host Configuration Information |
Yes |
No |
Host History |
Yes |
No |
Host Notifications |
Yes |
No |
Host Commands |
Yes |
No |
Service Status Information |
Yes |
No |
Service Configuration Information |
Yes |
No |
Service History |
Yes |
No |
Service Notifications |
Yes |
No |
Service Commands |
Yes |
No |
All Configuration Information |
No |
No |
System/Process Information |
No |
No |
System/Process Commands |
No |
No |
Authenticated contacts * are granted the following permissions for each service for which they are contacts (but not for services for which they are not contacts)...
Authorization to view service status information
Authorization to view service configuration information
Authorization to view history and notifications for the service
Authorization to issue service commands
Authenticated contacts * are granted the following permissions for each host for which they are contacts (but not for hosts for which they are not contacts)...
Authorization to view host status information
Authorization to view host configuration information
Authorization to view history and notifications for the host
Authorization to issue host commands
Authorization to view status information for all services on the host
Authorization to view configuration information for all services on the host
Authorization to view history and notification information for all services on the host
Authorization to issue commands for all services on the host
It is important to note that by default no one is authorized for the following...
Viewing the raw log file via the showlog CGI
Viewing Icinga process information via the extended information CGI
Issuing Icinga process commands via the command CGI
Viewing host group, contact, contact group, time period, and command definitions via the configuration CGI
You will undoubtably want to access this information, so you'll have to assign additional rights for yourself (and possibly other users) as described below...
You can grant authenticated contacts or other authenticated users permission to additional information in the CGIs by adding them to various authorization variables in the CGI configuration file. We realize that the available options don't allow for getting really specific about particular permissions, but its better than nothing..
Additional authorization can be given to users by adding them to the following variables in the CGI configuration file...
If you are confused about the authorization needed to access various information in the CGIs, read the Authorization Requirements section for each CGI as described here.
If your web server is located in a secure domain (i.e., behind a firewall) or if you are using SSL, you can define a default username that can be used to access the CGIs. This is done by defining the default_user_name option in the CGI configuration file. By defining a default username that can access the CGIs, you can allow users to access the CGIs without necessarily having to authenticate to the web server. You may want to use this to avoid having to use basic web authentication, as basic authentication transmits passwords in clear text over the Internet.
Important: Do not define a default username unless you are running a secure web server and are sure that everyone who has access to the CGIs has been authenticated in some manner. If you define this variable, anyone who has not authenticated to the web server will inherit all rights you assign to this user!
© 2009-2012 Icinga Development Team, http://www.icinga.org