Unable to install plugin via HTTP API

Grafana Developers & API
,
1

  • What Grafana version and what operating system are you using?
    Grafana: 11.1.0
    Environment: Podman container
    OS: Fedora 40 x86_64

  • What are you trying to achieve?
    I am trying to install a plugin via HTTP API using admin service account

  • How are you trying to achieve it?
    Call API endpoint:
    URL: http://localhost:3001/api/plugins/esnet-arcdiagram-panel/install
    Authentication: Bearer [REDACTED]
    Body:

{
	"version": "1.0.4"
}
  • What happened?
    API returned 403:
{
	"accessErrorId": "ACE5310255672",
	"message": "You'll need additional permissions to perform this action. Permissions needed: plugins:install",
	"title": "Access denied"
}

  • What did you expect to happen?
    API returned 200 with some data and plugin installed

  • Can you describe the configuration(s) that you are having problems with?
    Service account has admin privileges and API is working fine with dashboards/datasources/etc

  • Did you follow any online instructions? If so, what is the URL?
    I used endpoint and response format from grafana-client · PyPI library

2

can you point out grafana documentation that shows this install plugin api endpoint?

3

I think this part of API is undocumented. Despite this it exists and can be called. As well as the endpoint for getting all plugins, it works properly.

4
5

So it can be working differently between different versions.

I think Grafana UI uses that as well, so check endpoint/payload generater by your UI in the browser console.

But your problem seems to be an authorization. I would use “super admin” account, which works only with basic auth usually.

6

what are we looking at here @sowdenraymond doesnt seem like grafana docu to me?

7

its the pypi doc not official Grafana