Plugins

By declaring plugins you can install Python modules and use the installed or preinstalled modules to perform different operations. You can also specify where a specific plugin’s operations will be executed.

Declaration

The plugins section is a dictionary in which each item in the dictionary represents a plugin to use in the blueprint.

plugins:
  plugin1:
    ...
  plugin2:
    ...

Schema

Installation Configuration

When a plugin definition is configured with install: true (which is the default), source or package_name must be specified as well. If package_name is specified, the Manager is queried for a matching managed plugin. If one is found, it is installed. If package_name is not specified, or no matching managed plugin is found, source is used. If no managed plugin is found and source is not defined, plugin installation fails.

Source Plugins

source specifies where the plugin to be installed is located. May be:

• A URL to an archive of the plugin to be installed.
• The name of a directory containing the plugin, which is expected to be inside the blueprint’s plugins directory.
• The source method should only be used when developing plugins and the skip-plugins-validation flag should be passed at deployment time.

Managed Plugins

package_name specifies the name of the managed plugin to be installed. package_version, supported_platfrom, distribution, distribution_version and distribution_release may be used to explicitly specify the managed plugin to be installed. Otherwise, an implicit resolution mechanism is utilized that fetches the latest matching managed plugin.

Learn more about using the Cloudify plugin API here

Executor

executor specifies where the plugin should be installed and where operations using this plugin are to be executed. Valid values are central_deployment_agent, in which case the plugin is installed on the central deployment agent, and host_agent, in which case the plugin is installed on the compute node that contains the node that maps an operation to the plugin. To override the executor configuration on a per-operation basis, see operation executor.

Examples

Source Plugin - External

The following is an example of a plugin definition that would be installed via a URL.

plugins:
  openstack:
    executor: central_deployment_agent
    source: https://github.com/cloudify-cosmo/cloudify-openstack-plugin/archive/1.3.zip

node_templates:
  vm:
    type: openstack.nodes.Server
    interfaces:
      my_interface:
        create: openstack.nove_plugin.server.create

Source Plugin - Packaged With Blueprint

The following is an example of a plugin definition that is pre-bundled with the blueprint, under its plugins directory.

plugins:
  my_blueprint_plugin:
    executor: central_deployment_agent
    # name of directory containing the plugin inside the blueprint 'plugins' directory
    source: my-blueprint-plugin

node_templates:
  app:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Application
    interfaces:
      my_interface:
        delete: my_blueprint_plugin.blueprint_plugin_package.tasks.delete

Non-Installed Plugin

The following is an example of a plugin definition so that the plugin is not installed. This might be used when a custom agent package, created using the agent-packager, already includes this plugin, meaning that no installation is necessary.

plugins:
  my_plugin:
    executor: central_deployment_agent
    install: false

node_templates:
  app:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Application
    interfaces:
      my_interface:
        configure: my_plugin.my_plugin_package.operations.configure

Managed Plugin

The following is an example of a plugin definition for a plugin to be installed via the managed plugins mechanism.

plugins:
  some_managed_plugin:
    executor: host_agent
    package_name: some-managed-plugin

node_templates:
  app:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Application
    interfaces:
      my_interface:
        start: some_managed_plugin.my_managed_plugin_package.operations.start

Install Arguments

The following is an example of a plugin definition for a plugin to be installed with specific install arguments.

plugins:
  plugin_with_args:
    executor: central_deployment_agn
    source: http://www.example.com/path/to/plugin.tar.gz
    # pip install will be called with these arguments appended
    # with the plugin directory as the current working directory.
    install_arguments: -r requirements.txt

node_templates:
  app:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Application
    interfaces:
      my_interface:
        start: plugin_with_args.withargs_plugin_package.operations.start