SolarWinds Inventory

The SolarWinds inventory plugin pulls device information from SolarWinds NPM (Network Performance Monitor) via the SWIS (SolarWinds Information Service) API.

When to Use

If SolarWinds is what you have, it works. A proper source of truth like NetBox or Nautobot is preferable since they're designed for this purpose, but SolarWinds is still better than maintaining YAML files by hand.

Requirements

• SolarWinds NPM/Orion instance
• SWIS API access (typically port 17774)
• User account with API permissions
• orionsdk library (included in Tom's dependencies)

Configuration

Controller Config

# tom_controller_config.yaml
inventory_type: solarwinds

# Plugin settings
plugin_solarwinds_host: "solarwinds.example.com"
plugin_solarwinds_username: "apiuser"
plugin_solarwinds_password: "apipassword"
plugin_solarwinds_port: 17774

# Default credential ID for devices
plugin_solarwinds_default_cred_name: default

# Device mappings (see below)
plugin_solarwinds_device_mappings:
  - match:
      vendor: "cisco"
      description: "ios"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_ios
      credential_id: cisco_creds
  - match:
      vendor: "arista"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: arista_eos
      credential_id: arista_creds
  - match:
      vendor: ".*"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_ios
      credential_id: default

Or via environment variables:

TOM_PLUGIN_SOLARWINDS_HOST=solarwinds.example.com
TOM_PLUGIN_SOLARWINDS_USERNAME=apiuser
TOM_PLUGIN_SOLARWINDS_PASSWORD=apipassword
TOM_PLUGIN_SOLARWINDS_PORT=17774

Device Mappings

SolarWinds doesn't store netmiko/scrapli driver information, so you configure rules to map devices to adapters based on their SolarWinds properties.

Each mapping rule has:

• match: Regex patterns to match against device properties
• action: What adapter/driver/credential to use for matching devices

plugin_solarwinds_device_mappings:
  # Cisco IOS devices
  - match:
      vendor: "cisco"
      description: "(?i)ios(?!-xr)"  # IOS but not IOS-XR
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_ios
      credential_id: cisco_creds

  # Cisco IOS-XR devices
  - match:
      vendor: "cisco"
      description: "(?i)ios-xr"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_xr
      credential_id: cisco_creds

  # Arista switches
  - match:
      vendor: "arista"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: arista_eos
      credential_id: arista_creds

  # Juniper devices
  - match:
      vendor: "juniper"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: juniper_junos
      credential_id: juniper_creds

  # Catch-all fallback (should be last)
  - match:
      vendor: ".*"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_ios
      credential_id: default

Match Criteria

Field	SolarWinds Property	Description
vendor	Vendor	Device vendor (regex)
description	Description	Device description/OS (regex)
caption	Caption	Device hostname (regex)

All patterns are case-insensitive regex. Rules are evaluated in order; first match wins.

Named Filters

Note: Named filters may be deprecated in a future release. Prefer inline filters for new implementations.

The SolarWinds plugin includes predefined filters for common device types:

Filter Name	Description
switches	Dell, Arista, and Cisco switches
routers	Cisco ASR and Juniper MX routers
arista_exclusion	Arista devices excluding specific models
iosxe	Cisco IOS-XE devices (excludes Nexus, ASA)
ospf_crawler_filter	Cisco ASR, 29xx, Juniper MX104

Use named filters:

curl "http://localhost:8000/api/inventory/export?filter_name=switches" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key"

Filterable Fields

The SolarWinds plugin supports filtering on these fields:

Field	Description
NodeID	SolarWinds node ID
IPAddress	Device IP address
Uri	SolarWinds URI
Caption	Device hostname
Description	Device description/OS info
Status	Node status code
Vendor	Device vendor
DetailsUrl	SolarWinds details URL

Example inline filter:

curl "http://localhost:8000/api/inventory/export?Vendor=cisco&Description=asr.*" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key"

Device Data

The plugin queries SolarWinds for nodes with status 1 (Up) or 3 (Warning) by default. For each node, it retrieves:

• NodeID - SolarWinds internal ID
• IPAddress - Used as the connection host
• Caption - Used as the device name
• Vendor - Used for device mapping
• Description - Used for device mapping

Example: Complete Setup

1. SolarWinds Setup

Ensure your SolarWinds instance has: - SWIS API enabled (port 17774) - A user account with API read permissions - Nodes with Vendor and Description populated

2. Tom Configuration

# tom_controller_config.yaml
inventory_type: solarwinds

plugin_solarwinds_host: "solarwinds.example.com"
plugin_solarwinds_username: "tom_api"
plugin_solarwinds_password: "secretpassword"
plugin_solarwinds_port: 17774
plugin_solarwinds_default_cred_name: default

plugin_solarwinds_device_mappings:
  - match:
      vendor: "cisco"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_ios
      credential_id: cisco_creds
  - match:
      vendor: "arista"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: arista_eos
      credential_id: arista_creds
  - match:
      vendor: ".*"
    action:
      adapter: netmiko
      adapter_driver: cisco_ios
      credential_id: default

3. Store Credentials

# Using Vault
uv run credload.py put default -u admin -p defaultpass
uv run credload.py put cisco_creds -u cisco -p ciscopass
uv run credload.py put arista_creds -u arista -p aristapass

4. Test

# List all devices from SolarWinds
curl "http://localhost:8000/api/inventory/export" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key"

# List only switches
curl "http://localhost:8000/api/inventory/export?filter_name=switches" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key"

# Query a specific device (by Caption/hostname)
curl -X POST "http://localhost:8000/api/device/core-rtr-01/send_command" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"command": "show version", "wait": true}'