Best Practices for Deploying and Testing Remote Plug-ins

Apply the following advice to minimize difficulties when you deploy your plug-in or plug-ins.
  • To prevent deployment issues when you try to deploy a new version of a registered plug-in, make sure that you modify the version property of your plug-in extension.
  • To prevent deployment issues when you try to deploy a plug-in with the same version, make sure that you unregister the plug-in by removing the plug-in as a vCenter Server extension. You must also manually delete the cached files of the plug-in that are stored in one of the following locations:
    Environment
    Location of Cached Packages
    vCenter Server Appliance
    /etc/vmware/vsphere-ui/vc-packages/vsphere-client-serenity/
  • To avoid performance issues, make sure that your plug-in has only one version registered with the vCenter Server. You must not change the value of the key property of the vCenter Server Extension data object between releases.
  • To verify the deployment of your plug-in and monitor for any issues related to your plug-in, see one or more of the following resources:
    • The
      Administration
      Client Plug-ins
      view in the vSphere Client.
    • The
      Download Plugin
      task in the Tasks console.
    • The
      Deploy Plugin
      task in the Tasks console.
    • The Tomcat Server log files.
    You can find the Tomcat server log files in one of the following locations:
    Environment
    Tomcat Log Files Location
    vCenter Server Appliance 8.0 installation vSphere Client
    /var/log/vmware/vsphere-ui/logs/
    The
    vsphere_client_virgo.log
    file contains the log information that the Tomcat server generates. Problems usually start with the
    [ERROR]
    tag. Use your plug-in name or the bundle symbolic name to detect errors caused by your plug-in.