Sign a plugin

All Grafana Labs-authored backend plugins, including Enterprise plugins, are signed so that we can verify their authenticity with signature verification. By default, Grafana requires all plugins to be signed in order for them to be loaded.

Before you can sign your plugin, you need to decide whether you want to sign it as a public or a private plugin.

To make your plugin publicly available outside of your organization, sign your plugin under a community or commercial signature level. Public plugins are available from the Grafana plugin catalog and can be installed by anyone.

If you intend to only use the plugin within your organization, sign it under a private signature level.

info

It's not necessary to sign a plugin during development. The Docker development environment that is scaffolded with @grafana/create-plugin will load the plugin without a signature.

Generate an Access Policy token

To verify ownership of your plugin, generate an Access Policy token that you'll use every time you need to sign a new version of your plugin.

1. Create a Grafana Cloud account.

2. Login into your account and navigate to My Account > Security > Access Policies. Click Create access policy.

   Realm: has to be your-org-name (all-stacks) Scope: plugins:write

   

   Create access policy.

3. Click Create token to create a new token.

   The expiration date field is optional, though you should change tokens periodically for increased security.

   

   Create access policy token.

4. Click Create and save a copy of the token somewhere secure for future reference.

Sign a public plugin

Public plugins need to be reviewed by the Grafana team before you can sign them.

1. Submit your plugin for review.

2. If we approve your plugin, you're granted a plugin signature level. You need this signature level to proceed.

3. In your plugin directory, sign the plugin with the API key you just created. Grafana Sign Plugin creates a MANIFEST.txt file in the dist directory of your plugin:

   export GRAFANA_ACCESS_POLICY_TOKEN=<YOUR_ACCESS_POLICY_TOKEN>
   npx @grafana/sign-plugin@latest

Sign a private plugin

1. In your plugin directory, sign the plugin with the API key you just created. Grafana Sign Plugin creates a MANIFEST.txt file in the dist directory of your plugin.

   export GRAFANA_ACCESS_POLICY_TOKEN=<YOUR_ACCESS_POLICY_TOKEN>
   npx @grafana/sign-plugin@latest --rootUrls https://example.com/grafana

2. After the rootUrls flag, enter a comma-separated list of URLs for the Grafana instances where you intend to install the plugin.

Plugin signature levels

To sign a plugin, you need to select the signature level that you want to sign it under. The signature level of your plugin determines how you can distribute it.

You can sign your plugin under three different signature levels: private, community, and commercial.

Signature Level	Paid Subscription Required to Sign?	Description
Private	No; Free of charge	Private plugins are for use on your own Grafana instance. They may not be shared to the Grafana community or to your customers, and are not published in the Grafana catalog. Private plugins are not supported in Grafana Cloud.
Community	No; Free of charge	Community plugins contain dependent technologies that are open source and/or not for profit. Community plugins are published to the official Grafana catalog, and are available to the Grafana community for direct installation. Support is provided by the individual developer and/or community. Supported in Grafana Cloud. Not commercial in nature and not affiliated with any commercial endeavor.
Commercial	Yes; Commercial plugin subscription required	Commercial plugins contain dependent technologies that are closed source or commercially backed (even if open source at their core). These plugins meet the commercial plugin criteria and are partner-developed. Commercial plugins are published to the official Grafana catalog, and are available to the Grafana community for direct installation. Support is provided by the Partner. Supported in Grafana Cloud.

For instructions on how to sign a plugin under the Community and Commercial signature level, refer to Sign a public plugin.

For instructions on how to sign a plugin under the Private signature level, refer to Sign a private plugin.

Plugin manifest

For Grafana to verify the digital signature of a plugin, the plugin must include a signed manifest file, MANIFEST.txt. The signed manifest file contains two sections:

• Signed message - Contains plugin metadata and plugin files with their respective checksums (SHA256).
• Digital signature - Created by encrypting the signed message using a private key. Grafana has a public key built-in that can be used to verify that the digital signature has been encrypted using the expected private key.

Example

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

{
  "manifestVersion": "2.0.0",
  "signatureType": "community",
  "signedByOrg": "myorgid",
  "signedByOrgName": "My Org",
  "plugin": "myorgid-simple-panel",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "time": 1602753404133,
  "keyId": "7e4d0c6a708866e7",
  "files": {
    "LICENSE": "12ab7a0961275f5ce7a428e662279cf49bab887d12b2ff7bfde738346178c28c",
    "module.js.LICENSE.txt": "0d8f66cd4afb566cb5b7e1540c68f43b939d3eba12ace290f18abc4f4cb53ed0",
    "module.js.map": "8a4ede5b5847dec1c6c30008d07bef8a049408d2b1e862841e30357f82e0fa19",
    "plugin.json": "13be5f2fd55bee787c5413b5ba6a1fae2dfe8d2df6c867dadc4657b98f821f90",
    "README.md": "2d90145b28f22348d4f50a81695e888c68ebd4f8baec731fdf2d79c8b187a27f",
    "module.js": "b4b6945bbf3332b08e5e1cb214a5b85c82557b292577eb58c8eb1703bc8e4577"
  }
}
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: OpenPGP.js v4.10.1
Comment: https://openpgpjs.org

wqEEARMKAAYFAl+IE3wACgkQfk0ManCIZudpdwIHTCqjVzfm7DechTa7BTbd
+dNIQtwh8Tv2Q9HksgN6c6M9nbQTP0xNHwxSxHOI8EL3euz/OagzWoiIWulG
7AQo7FYCCQGucaLPPK3tsWaeFqVKy+JtQhrJJui23DAZLSYQYZlKQ+nFqc9x
T6scfmuhWC/TOcm83EVoCzIV3R5dOTKHqkjIUg==
=GdNq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Troubleshooting

Why do I get a "Modified signature" error?

In some cases an invalid MANIFEST.txt is generated because of an issue when signing the plugin on Windows. You can fix this by replacing all double backslashes, \\, with a forward slash, /, in the MANIFEST.txt file. You need to do this every time you sign your plugin.

Why do I get a "Field is required: rootUrls" error for my public plugin?

With a public plugin, your plugin doesn't have a plugin signature level assigned to it yet. A Grafana team member will assign a signature level to your plugin once it has been reviewed and approved. For more information, refer to Sign a public plugin.

Why do I get a "Field is required: rootUrls" error for my private plugin?

With a private plugin, you need to add a rootUrls flag to the plugin:sign command. The rootUrls must match the root_url configuration. For more information, refer to Sign a private plugin.

If you still get this error, make sure that the API key was generated by a Grafana Cloud account that matches the first part of the plugin ID.