Redeploying Plug-ins During Development

The vSphere Client service discovers new remote plug-ins as soon as they are registered with any linked vCenter Server instance. Some later changes to the registration record can cause redeployment of the plug-in. To bypass the need to change the registration record during plug-in development, you can trigger redeployment of plug-in changes by using the
Redeploy
feature.
When you are developing and testing a plug-in, you can trigger redeployment frequently by using the
Redeploy
button, without the need to make changes to the extension registration record. After the
Redeploy
button is enabled, it is visible in the
Client Plug-Ins
window, where it applies to any selected plug-in. The button causes vCenter Server to undeploy the selected plug-in, and then deploy it again based on the same registration record.
Redeploy feature in Plugin Developer Mode
This screenshot shows where to find the Redeploy button while developing plug-in
          code.
To enable the
Redeploy
button, set
pluginDeveloperMode
by appending the query parameter
pluginDeveloperMode=true
to any URL loaded into the browser window. For example, the URL could be the following:
https://
vcenter-server-fqdn
/ui/?pluginDeveloperMode=true
When you set
pluginDeveloperMode
, it remains in effect until you browse to a URL that contains the query parameter
pluginDeveloperMode=false
, or until you refresh the browser window while the browser address field does not include
pluginDeveloperMode=true
.
The
Redeploy
button requires the
Plugin.Management
privilege, which is available by default to all users who have the Administrator role.