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Grafana documentation Developers Plugin developer's guide Sign a plugin

Sign a plugin

Grafana requires all plugins to be signed so that we can verify their authenticity with signature verification.

All Grafana Labs-authored backend plugins, including Enterprise plugins, are signed. 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.

Generate an API key

To verify ownership of your plugin, generate an API key that you’ll use every time you need to sign a new version of your plugin.

1. Create a Grafana Cloud account.

2. Make sure that the first part of the plugin ID matches the slug of your Grafana Cloud account.

   You can find the plugin ID in the plugin.json file inside your plugin directory. For example, if your account slug is acmecorp, you need to prefix the plugin ID with acmecorp-.

3. Create a Grafana Cloud API key with the PluginPublisher role.

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_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>
   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_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>
   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.

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.