Connectors¶
Connectors are the integrations between Nexplane and the external systems it manages. Each connector serves two functions: ingest (discovering assets into inventory) and change actions (executing change requests against that system).
Two Functions¶
Ingest — a connector polls its external system on a schedule and syncs discovered resources as assets into Nexplane. EC2 instances, IAM users, Okta users, Kubernetes deployments — all discovered automatically.
Change actions — a connector implements the execution logic for one or more change types. When a change request is approved and executed, Nexplane routes it to the correct connector executor, which calls the external API.
Credential Storage¶
Connector credentials (API keys, service principal secrets, private keys) are encrypted with SecretsService (Fernet AES-256) before being stored. They are never returned in GET responses. The SecretsService abstraction is designed for swap-out to HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, or an HSM without changing connector code.
Connector Count¶
Nexplane includes 65+ connectors across six categories:
| Category | Connectors |
|---|---|
| Cloud & Infrastructure | AWS, Azure, GCP, Cloudflare, Palo Alto, Tailscale |
| Identity & Access | Okta, Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, HashiCorp Vault, GitHub |
| Security Tools / EDR | CrowdStrike, Tenable, SentinelOne, Snyk, Qualys, Wiz, RunZero |
| SaaS | Google Workspace, Slack, Kubernetes, Helm |
| IaC & Configuration | Terraform (local), Terraform (remote), Ansible (local), Ansible (remote) |
| Workflow & Observability | Jira, PagerDuty, ServiceNow, Splunk, Datadog |
| Host Execution | SSH, Nexplane Agent |
See Connectors for the full list and individual connector pages.
Test Connection¶
After saving a connector's credentials, use Test Connection to verify they are valid. For cloud connectors, this typically calls an identity verification endpoint (e.g., sts:GetCallerIdentity for AWS).
Scheduled Ingest¶
Each connector has a configurable ingest schedule. You can also trigger manual ingest at any time from the connector detail page.