About Plug-Ins

A plug-in is a group of objects that have been created for a particular application and packaged to work with the provisioning system. Plug-ins allow you to work with different applications in the provisioning system without modeling the applications first. Plug-ins can provide a number of different objects that are ready for use. This saves you the time of creating the components and plans from scratch. Rather than require that each customer recreate all the objects that an application requires, plug-ins provide common objects that are useful in any environment.

A plug-in can contain the following objects.

• Components

• Component types

• Plans

• Host sets

• Host searches

• Host types

• Folders

Plug-In Characteristics

• A plug-in owns all objects that it creates. No object that is created by a plug-in can be deleted directly. However, deleting the plug-in itself will result in the deletion of all the objects it owns.

• A plug-in can create folders to contain its components, plans, and subfolders.

  If the folder is supposed to be nested within other folders, the plug-in also creates the parent folders of the plug-in.

• The admin user group is the owner user group of all plug-in folders.

• Only members of the admin user group can perform administrative tasks on plug-ins or plug-in-owned objects.

• All plug-in objects, except folders, components, and plans, will use the plug-in-name#object-name naming convention.

  For example, system#file represents an object from the system plug-in named file.

Importing Plug-Ins

You can install a plug-in by importing the plug-in's JAR file. When you import a plug-in, you lock down the provisioning system until the import is complete.

The following tasks also require a lock-down of the provisioning system. This means that you cannot begin importing a plug-in if one of these operations is being executed. You also cannot start one of these operations when you are importing a plug-in.

• Saving a component type

• Saving a system service

• Moving or renaming a component

• Moving or renaming a plan

• Moving or renaming a folder

• Deleting any object

How to Import a Plug-In

This procedure describes how to import a plug-in by using the browser interface. You can also import a plug-in by using the following commands.

• plg.p.add – Imports a new or existing version of a plug-in.

Before You Begin

To import a plug-in, you must be a member of the admin user group.

Steps

1. In the navigation menu, expand the Administrative category and click Plug-ins.

2. Click Import.

   The Import page is displayed.

3. Select the plug-in JAR that you plan to import.

   • Type the name of the plug-in JAR file.

   • Click Browse to select the JAR file from a file browser.

4. Click Continue to Import.

   A status bar displays the progress of importing the plug-in.

   After the plug-in finishes importing, the plug-in Details page displays and lists the contents of the JAR file.

5. Click Done.

See Also

After installing the plug-in, check to see if there is a plug-in ReadMe file. This file might or might not exist. If the file exists, it should contain information about administering the plug-in, including information on how to set up the plug-in's folder permissions.

How to View a Plug-In

This procedure describes how to view imported plug-ins by using the browser interface. You can also view plug-ins by using the following commands.

• plg.p.la – Displays all imported plug-ins.

• plg.p.lo – Displays detailed information about a particular plug-in.

Steps

1. In the navigation menu, expand the Administrative category and click Plug-ins.

2. Select the plug-in you want to view and click Details.

   Objects contained by the plug-in and general plug-in information are displayed.

3. (Optional) To view objects contained in the plug-in, select the object you want to view and click Details.

   The object's Details page displays.

4. (Optional) If the plug-in contains a ReadMe file, click Download ReadMe.txt file to view the file.

Editing Plug-Ins

You can change the order that plug-ins are displayed in the navigation menu. If you do not configure the order of the plug-ins, the plug-ins display in alphabetical order.

How to Edit a Plug-In

This procedure describes how you can change the menu order of your plug-ins by using the browser interface. You can also perform this task using the following command.

• plg.p.mod – Modifies the menu order of a plug-in.

Before You Begin

To change the menu order of your plug-in, you must be a member of the admin user group.

Steps

1. In the navigation menu, expand the Administrative category and click Plug-ins.

2. Select the plug-in to which you'd like to assign a menu order.

   The plug-in's Details page displays.

3. Click Edit.

4. In the Menu Order field, type where you want this plug-in displayed in the navigation menu.

   The criteria for menu order is as follows.

   • No specified menu order takes precedence over a specified order.

     This means that if you want to specify that one plug-in should appear before all other plug-ins, you will need to provide a menu order for all imported plug-ins.

   • Low numbers take precedence over high numbers.

     A menu order of “1” takes precedence over a menu order of “2”.

   • Numbers take precedence over letters.

   • Capital letters take precedence over lowercase letters.

   • If the first numbers or letters are the identical, the first nonidentical character will determine the menu order.

Upgrading Plug-Ins

You can install a plug-in by importing the plug-in's JAR file. You can update a plug-in by importing a JAR file that contains just the contents needed to update the plug-in. This type of JAR file is called a patch and should be identified as a patch on the download site.

Patch Characteristics

• Patches can be applied in series to upgrade multiple versions.

  For example, to upgrade from the 1.0 version to the 1.2 version of a plug-in, first the 1.0 -> 1.1 patch is applied, followed by the 1.1 -> 1.2 patch.

• Patches can be created to upgrade from a specific plug-in version to a higher specific version.

  It is not possible to create a patch to upgrade from any arbitrary version to a higher version.

• Patches can only add content to a plug-in.

  Objects created by any version of an plug-in cannot be deleted.

• Patches cannot be uninstalled.

  To remove patch content, you can delete the plug-in and reinstall the older plug-in version. The provisioning system does not store older versions of a plug-in.

When you upgrade a plug-in, the patch adds new and updated objects to the provisioning system. If a plug-in patch attempts to add an object that already exists by the same name, two outcomes are possible.

• The object is updated with a new version number.

  If the object is a versioned object, the new object's minor version number increments unless the plug-in definition requires the object to increment by major versions.

• The object overwrites the existing object.

  If the object is a non-versioned object, the new object replaces the previous definition of the object.

In both the versioned and unversioned cases, the existing object must have been created by a prior version of the plug-in that is attempting to create the new version of the object.

How to Upgrade a Plug-In

This procedure describes how to upgrade a plug-in by using the browser interface. You can also upgrade a plug-in by using the following commands.

• plg.p.add – Imports a new or existing version of a plug-in.

Before You Begin

To upgrade a plug-in, you must be a member of the admin user group.

Steps

1. In the navigation menu, expand the Administrative category and click Plug-ins.

2. Click Import.

   The Import page is displayed.

3. Select the plug-in JAR that you plan to import.

   • Type the name of the plug-in JAR file.

   • Click Browse to select the JAR file from a file browser.

4. Click Continue to Import.

   A status bar displays the progress of importing the plug-in.

   After the plug-in finishes importing, the plug-in Details page displays and lists the contents of the JAR file.

5. Click Done.

See Also

After installing the plug-in, check to see if there is a plug-in ReadMe file. This file might or might not exist. If the file exists, it should contain information about administering the plug-in, including information on how to set up the plug-in's folder permissions.

Deleting Plug-Ins

When you delete a plug-in, the provisioning system also deletes all object created by all versions of that plug-in. If any object is being used, the plug-in cannot be deleted.

By deleting a plug-in, you lock down the provisioning system until the deletion is complete.

The following tasks also require a lock-down of the provisioning system. This means that you cannot begin deleting a plug-in if one of these operations is being executed. You also cannot start one of these operations when you are deleting a plug-in.

• Saving a component type

• Saving a system service

• Importing a plug-in

• Moving or renaming a component

• Moving or renaming a plan

• Moving or renaming a folder

• Deleting any object

How to Delete a Plug-In

This procedure describes how to delete a plug-in by using the browser interface. You can also delete plug-ins by using the following command.

• plg.p.del – Deletes a plug-in.

Before You Begin

You cannot delete a plug-in if any object owned by the plug-in is being used by the provisioning system.

To delete a plug-in, you must be a member of the admin user group.

Steps

1. Go to the Details page of the plug-in you plan to delete.

2. At the bottom of the Details page, click Delete.

   You are asked to verify that you want to delete the plug-in.

3. Click Continue to Delete.

   After the plug-in is deleted, the Plug-in page is updated.