Setting permissions for Synthetic monitoring

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Selectively grant access to users for the various capabilities of Synthetic monitoring. The permissions to access the various capabilities on the Instana UI and API are disabled by default for most users. Keep security considerations in mind when deciding which permissions to grant to each group before you add users to groups.

To use Synthetic monitoring, you need a group with appropriate permissions for Synthetic monitoring. You can set the desired Synthetic monitoring access level when you create a new group or when you modify an existing group. All Synthetic monitoring permissions are granted to the users in the Owner group by default. The Access All - Viewer permission is granted to the users in the Default group by default.

By using Synthetic monitoring, access to various capabilities from both the Instana UI and API is limited to the set of users with that access.

Before you grant permissions to create, update, or delete Synthetic tests, you must evaluate how granting these permissions might impact your operations.Deciding which permissions to grant on Synthetic tests. Familiarize with the requirements for securing Synthetic tests; see Securely using Synthetic test scripts.

Note: In Instana 269 and later, only the users who are authenticated with two-factor authentication or by using an Identity Provider (IdP) can perform write operations for Synthetic tests. This authentication provides an extra layer of security to make sure that only the verified users can create or modify tests that can run through Synthetic PoPs.

  • Configuration of Synthetic tests: The users in this group, with this permission and the Owner role, can create, modify, and delete Synthetic tests.

  • Configuration of Synthetic credentials: The users with this permission can create and delete the credentials that are used when running Synthetic tests.

  • Access to use Synthetic credentials: The users with this permission can run Synthetic tests that require user credentials to run Synthetic test script.

  • View Synthetic test results: The users with this permission can view the details of the Synthetic tests that were run, including any logs or screenshots that were taken while running the Synthetic tests.

To set the permissions for Synthetic monitoring, log on to Instana UI with a user ID that has the Owner level permissions. Alternately, you can ask another user with Owner permissions to give you the permissions for Synthetic monitoring.

To apply more restrictions, you can use the Limited access access level for Synthetic monitoring. For more information, see Synthetic monitoring Limited access.

Note: If you have groups from Instana 259 or earlier versions with no permissions for Synthetic monitoring, prevent the users in these groups from monitoring the infrastructure entities that are connected to applications or platforms visible to those users.

To prevent users in a group from accessing Synthetic monitoring, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Settings > Security & Access > Roles.
  2. Select the group and click Edit permissions.
  3. In Synthetic Monitoring , set Access synthetic tests and view their configuration to on.
  4. Click Save.
  5. In the Instana UI, go to Settings > API Tokens, and edit the tokens that you created for using Synthetic monitoring. You can enable the added permissions for each API token that you will use with the Synthetic monitoring APIs.

These permissions are applicable to both API tokens and the Instana UI.

For more information on granting permissions on the Instana UI, see Managing user access.

For more information on permissions and user access, see Using Synthetic monitoring Limited access.

For more information about updating API Tokens, see Web REST API Tokens.