Server Plugins

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What follows is an advanced subject. In almost all cases you should use the standard project based API. A server plugin is useful if you need to access specific functionality within multiple api projects, create a plugin that is internal to your company, or share with the community.

Custom built plugins can be used to extend the Coronium Core server. These plugins become available in the server-side core namespace for use in server-side project API files.

Because of this, you must be careful in choosing the name of your plugin. If a name conflict exists, Coronium will always choose the internal module.

Creating Plugins

A custom plugin is simply a Lua module you place in a certain directory structure on your Coronium Core server.

Your custom plugins live in the /home/coronium/plugins directory.

Make sure to use the coronium user when uploading your plugins via SFTP.

Example Plugin

Custom plugins have access to the core namespace server modules as well.

--Basic plugin
local echo = {}

function echo.hello( name )
  return "Hello " .. name
end

return echo

Namespaces

Your plugin should be placed in a unique directory to avoid conflicts with other developer plugins.

Example

plugins/
  example/
    echo.lua

In the example above the echo plugin is placed inside the plugins/example directory.

You can use a developer nickname, company, etc. as the directory name. You can store multiple plugins you create in this folder for use; providing each plugin has a unique name.

Example

plugins/
  develephant/
    echo.lua
    otherplugin.lua

Enabling plugins

To enable a plugin, add an entry to the /home/coronium/plugins/plugins.lua file. Choose the key the plugin will use, and then literally require it.

Warning

Be very careful when editing the plugins.lua file. If the syntax is incorrect the service will not be able to start correctly. Make sure to use the coronium user when working with the plugins.lua via SFTP.

Example

--/home/coronium/plugins/plugins.lua
local plugins = 
{
  --enable the echo plugin implementation
  echo = require("develephant.echo")
}

return plugins

Restart the Coronium service with sudo coronium restart.

Accessing

Your plugin is available in the core server-side namespace as the key specified in the plugins.lua file for use in server-side project API files.

Server API Example

local api = core.api()

function api.test( input )
  -- Using the custom `echo` plugin
  local resp = core.echo.hello( "Coronium" )

  return resp
end

return api

The response should be "Hello Coronium" when received by the client.