SNOW REST connectivity

Verify ServiceNow test/production environment connectivity. Are you ready to begin the checks for ‘SNOW REST connectivity’?

Verify the following pre-requisites are met before proceeding:

Proxy

TEST/PROD ServiceNow (SNow) URL(s)

Password

High level outline:

Verify network connectivity via proxy, using SNOW URL’s, ID, password

Verify CredentialManager Snapin installed

Setup credentials in CredentialManager

Verify network connectivity via proxy, using SNOW URL’s, ID, password

Determine the SCOM notification account being used, see blog for details.

RDP to SCOM MS using notification account.

Open PowerShell as administrator

Verify network connectivity pasting command into PowerShell window

Example SNOW URL JustinTime.servicenowservices.com

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName JustinTime.servicenowservices.com -port 443

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName JustinTime.servicenowservices.com -port 443 -proxy ##PROXY##

Successful connectivity

PS C:\MonAdmin\SCRIPTS> Test-NetConnection -ComputerName servicenowservices.com -port 443

ComputerName : servicenowservices.com

RemoteAddress : 199.91.136.115

RemotePort : 443

InterfaceAlias : Ethernet 2

SourceAddress : 10.0.0.30

TcpTestSucceeded : True

Verify CredentialManager Snapin is installed

Best practice – Encrypt credentials on SCOM MS to prevent cleartext in scripts. To begin, this includes details to verify SnapIn, verify credentials stored, store credentials.

Verify CredentialManager Snapin is installed

RDP to SCOM MS server(s) as SCOM Notifications SVC account with SA access

Open PowerShell as administrator

Paste command(s) into PowerShell window to test network connectivity to SNOW environments

# Verify Credential Manager snap in installed

$CredMgrModuleBase = Get-Module -Name CredentialManager

if ( $Null -ne $CredMgrModuleBase.ModuleBase )

{ write-host -f yellow “CredentialManager PoSH Module Installed, ModuleBase = $($CredMgrModuleBase.ModuleBase)” }

if ( $Null -eq $CredMgrModuleBase.ModuleBase )

{ write-host -f red “CredentialManager PoSH Module NOT Installed” }

CredentialManager snapin PowerShell output

Verify Stored Credentials on server

First, verify any credentials stored on server, specific to ServiceNow or not. Second, we begin to use the Get-StoredCredential command. Third, we will setup the credential for REST integration, lastly verifying credential.

Setup Credentials for SNOW RESTAPI

RDP to SCOM MS server(s) as SCOM Notifications SVC account with SA access

Open PowerShell as administrator

Paste command(s) into PowerShell window to test network connectivity to SNOW environments

If no output, there are no credentials stored under the RDP login.

Get-StoredCredential

Commands specific to ServiceNow to verify credentials exist

$Credential = Get-StoredCredential -Target “ServiceNowCredential”

$Credential = Get-StoredCredential -Target “svc_rest_scom”

CredentialManager Get-StoredCredential Output

Alternate command to verify stored credential

Get-StoredCredential -Target “ServiceNowCredential”

Setup Credentials for SNOW RESTAPI

RDP to SCOM MS server(s) as SCOM Notifications SVC account with SA access

Open PowerShell as administrator

Paste the following commands to create stored credential:

New-StoredCredential -Target “ServiceNowCredential” -UserName “svc_rest_scom” -Password “##Password##” -Persist ‘LocalMachine’

Verify credential being used by SCOM

$Credential = Get-StoredCredential -Target “ServiceNowCredential”

Therefore, network connectivity verified. Lastly, encrypted credentials are stored in the SCOM notifications SVC account. Continue the integration!

SNOW REST integration prerequisites

Did you know –

These PowerShell scripts allow organizations to specify which alerts/events that need to go to ITSM tool.

Does not matter to the tool, whether Broadcom (Spectrum/DXOI), SolarWinds, MECM/MEM/MCM, SCOM

Pretty much ANY tool that can leverage PowerShell scripts and/or REST calls can utilize this script.

The following ServiceNow ‘SNOW REST integration prerequisites’ are required before proceeding.

TEST/PROD ServiceNow (SNow) URL(s)

Password

Incident short_description naming convention

ServiceNow SNOW Alert rule (to make events create incidents)

ServiceNow SNOW Incidents require additional variables to match ServiceNow selections

SNOW Incident short_description field is the title of the incident

Pre-define this in the SNOW REST Event/incident injection, to meet organizational naming conventions

Description can be additional details about the issue to be investigated, resolved.

SNOW Incident short_description, description fields

Examples of short_description titles

# Setup SNOW Event Name standard

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “<Org> <Team> SCOM Test Event – $Alert”

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “<Team> <ORG> SCOM Event – $AlertName”

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “<Team> <ORG> SCOM $AlertName”

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “##CUSTOMER## ##TEAM## SCOM Event – $AlertName”

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “##TEAM## ##CUSTOMER##: SCOM – $AlertName”

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “##TEAM## ##CUSTOMER##: SPECTRUM – $AlertName”

Example SNOWAlertName

$SNOWAlertName = “##TEAM## ##CUSTOMER##: SOLARWINDS – $AlertName”

SNOW Incident fields

Direct Incident REST injection requires additional fields, such as caller, business_service, category, subcategory, channel, impact, urgency, priority, assignment_group

Additional information

REST/RESTAPI https://www.techtarget.com/searchapparchitecture/definition/RESTful-API

SNOW Utah Connector https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/utah-it-operations-management/page/product/event-management/task/t_EMConfigureSCOMConnector.html

Additional blogs showing scope and options using ServiceNow for ITSM tool

https://kevinjustin.com/blog/2024/03/27/servicenow-event-integration/

https://kevinjustin.com/blog/2024/03/27/servicenow-incident-integration/

https://kevinjustin.com/blog/2024/04/30/servicenow-connector-for-scom/

https://kevinjustin.com/blog/2024/05/24/lots-of-options-to-create-servicenow-incidents-through-powershell-scripts-connectors-and-3rd-party-vendors/

Configure SCOM agent from PowerShell

Ever have a need to configure a SCOM agent outside the SCOM Console GUI using SCOM.Management pack? Tyson’s ‘SCOM Helper PowerShell module’ on monitoringguys.com may assist if you can update PowerShell and SnapIn’s. If Tyson’s solution may not be an applicable solution in a locked down environment, the blog is a PowerShell script to manage agent configuration.

A shout out to Aris for his watchful eye testing and playing with this!

Configure SCOM agent from PowerShell

GitHub Download https://github.com/theKevinJustin/SCOMAgentInstallApplication/

First, let’s begin the conversation. Leverage the PowerShell script to configure SCOM/MOM agent per domain(s). Whether DMZ forest(s), or multiple forests with SCOM gateways, the script will enable configuration management. Alternatively, add script as a compliance check to the Configuration Management tool, or as a post install step to configure SCOM Agent (MomAgent.MSI) via application or package. Third, utilize the PowerShell script where agent upgrade is a pre-req to resolve ‘a really old SCOM agent version’. Lastly, the script also tests network connectivity, and verifies if configuration is requested/loaded.

It all starts with this object from the command:

$SCOMAgent = New-Object -ComObject AgentConfigManager.MgmtSvcCfg

Use the PowerShell script to:

Clean up extraneous management groups

Determine domain

Check network connectivity via test-netconnection

Reset healthservice to expedite agent configuration

Background

Because Kevin Holman blogged this almost 10 years ago in VB, and I’m pretty rusty in VB these days. Check out Kevin’s blog titled ‘Using the agent scripting objects on a SCOM 2012 agent‘.

Documentation

Download https://github.com/theKevinJustin/SCOMAgentInstallApplication/

Kevin Holman’s blog for VB commands

Using the agent scripting objects on a SCOM 2012 agent

The agent configuration objects in MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh328967.aspx