netdisco/lib/App/Netdisco/Manual/WritingPlugins.pod

=head1 NAME

App::Netdisco::Manual::WritingPlugins - Documentation on Plugins for Developers

=head1 Introduction

L<App::Netdisco>'s plugin subsystem allows developers to write and test web
user interface (UI) components without needing to patch the main Netdisco
application. It also allows the end-user more control over the UI components
displayed in their browser.

See L<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin> for more general information about plugins.

=head1 Developing Plugins

A plugin is simply a Perl module which is loaded. Therefore it can do anything
you like, but most usefully for the App::Netdisco web application the module
will install a L<Dancer> route handler subroutine, and link this to a web user
interface (UI) component.

Explaining how to write Dancer route handlers is beyond the scope of this
document, but by examining the source to the plugins in App::Netdisco you'll
probably get enough of an idea to begin on your own.

App::Netdisco plugins should load the L<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin> module.
This exports a set of helper subroutines to register the new UI components.
Here's the boilerplate code for our example plugin module:

 package App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::MyNewFeature
 
 use Dancer ':syntax';
 use Dancer::Plugin::DBIC;
 use Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible;
 
 use App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin;
 
 # plugin registration code goes here, ** see below **
 
 # your Dancer route handler
 get '/mynewfeature' => require_login sub {
   # ...lorem ipsum...
 };
 
 true;

=head1 Navigation Bar items

These components appear in the black navigation bar at the top of each page,
as individual items (i.e. not in a menu). The canonical example of this is the
Inventory link.

To register an item for display in the navigation bar, use the following code:

 register_navbar_item({
   tag   => 'newfeature',
   path  => '/mynewfeature',
   label => 'My New Feature',
 });

This causes an item to appear in the Navigation Bar with a visible text of "My
New Feature" which when clicked sends the user to the C</mynewfeature> page.
Note that this won't work for any target link - the path must be an
App::Netdisco Dancer route handler. Please bug the App::Netdisco devs if you
want arbitrary links supported.

=head1 Search and Device page Tabs

These components appear as tabs in the interface when the user reaches the
Search page or Device details page. Note that Tab plugins usually live in
the C<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Device> or
C<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Search> namespace.

To register a handler for display as a Search page Tab, use the following
code:

 register_search_tab({tag => 'newfeature', label => 'My New Feature'});

This causes a tab to appear with the label "My New Feature". So how does
App::Netdisco know what the link should be? Well, as the
L<App::Netdisco::Developing> documentation says, tab content is retrieved by
an AJAX call back to the web server. This uses a predictable URL path format:

 /ajax/content/<search or device>/<feature tag>

For example:

 /ajax/content/search/newfeature

Therefore your plugin module should look like the following:

 package App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Search::MyNewFeature
 
 use Dancer ':syntax';
 use Dancer::Plugin::DBIC;
 use Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible;
 
 use App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin;
 
 register_search_tab({tag => 'newfeature', label => 'My New Feature'});
 
 get '/ajax/content/search/newfeature' => require_login sub {
   # ...lorem ipsum...
 
   # return some HTML content here, probably using a template
 };
 
 true;

If this all sounds a bit daunting, take a look at the
L<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Search::Port> module which is fairly
straightforward.

To register a handler for display as a Device page Tab, the only difference is
the name of the registration helper sub:

 register_device_tab({tag => 'newfeature', label => 'My New Feature'});

=head1 Reports

Report components contain pre-canned searches which the user community have
found to be useful. Before you go further, it might be the case that you can
generate the report without any Perl or HTML: see the L<Reports
Configuration|App::Netdisco::Manual::Configuration/reports> for details.

Otherwise, the typical implementation is very similar to one of the Search
and Device page Tabs, so please read that documentation above, first.

Report plugins usually live in the C<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Report>
namespace. To register a handler for display as a Report, you need to pick the
I<category> of the report. Here are the pre-defined categories:

=over 4

=item *

Device

=item *

Port

=item *

IP

=item *

Node

=item *

VLAN

=item *

Network

=item *

Wireless

=back

Once your category is selected, use the following registration code:

 register_report({
   category => 'Port', # pick one from the list
   tag => 'newreport',
   label => 'My New Report',
 });

You will note that like Device and Search page Tabs, there's no path
specified in the registration. The reports engine will make an AJAX request to
the following URL:

 /ajax/content/report/<report tag>

Therefore you should implement in your plugin a route handler for this path.
The handler must return the HTML content for the report. It can also process
any query parameters which might customize the report search.

See the L<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Report::DuplexMismatch> module for a
simple example of how to implement the handler.

An additional feature allows you to create Reports which do not appear in the
Navbar menu. This is useful if the page is only linked directly from another
(for example Port Log). To enable this feature add the C<hidden> key:

 register_report({
   tag   => 'newfeature',
   label => 'My New Feature',
   hidden => true,
 });

=head1 CSV Response

Most pages in Netdisco are a table with data. It's possible to have the
application add a link to download a CSV version of the same data. To do this,
include the following option in your call to C<register_search_tab>,
C<register_device_tab>, or C<register_report>:

 provides_csv => 1

The other thing you need to do is adjust your Dancer route handler to return
either HTML or CSV data. Here's the typical way to do it:

 get '/ajax/content/search/newfeature' => require_login sub {
   # build some kind of dataset here (e.g. a DBIx::Class query)

   if (request->is_ajax) {
     template 'mytemplate', { data => $mydataset }, { layout => undef };
   }
   else {
     header( 'Content-Type' => 'text/comma-separated-values' );
     template 'mytemplate_csv', { data => $mydataset }, { layout => undef };
   }
 };

Note that the C<is_ajax> call is part of the standard Dancer featureset.

=head1 Admin Tasks

These components appear in the black navigation bar under an Admin menu, but only
if the logged in user has Administrator rights in Netdisco.

To register an item for display in the Admin menu, use the following code:

 register_admin_task({
   tag   => 'newfeature',
   label => 'My New Feature',
 });

This causes an item to appear in the Admin menu with a visible text of "My New
Feature" which when clicked sends the user to the C</admin/mynewfeature> page.
Note that this won't work for any target link - the path must be an
App::Netdisco Dancer route handler. Please bug the App::Netdisco devs if you
want arbitrary links supported.

An additional feature allows you to create Admin Tasks which do not appear in
the Navbar menu. This is useful if the page is only linked directly from
another. To enable this feature add the C<hidden> key:

 register_admin_task({
   tag   => 'newfeature',
   label => 'My New Feature',
   hidden => true,
 });

=head1 Device Port Columns

You can also add columns to the Device Ports page. The canonical example of
this is to add hyperlinks (or embedded images) of traffic graphs for each
port, however the plugin is a regular Template::Toolkit template so can be any
HTML output.

The column plugin has a name (used internally to locate files on disk), label
(the heading for the column in the table or CSV output), position in the table
(three options: left, mid, right), and finally a flag for whether the column
is displayed by default.

To register the column call the following helper routine:

 register_device_port_column({
   name  => 'myportcolumnplugin',
   label => 'My Port Column Heading',
   position => 'left', # or "mid" or "right"
   default  => 'on',   # or undef
 });

App::Netdisco searches for one Template::Toolkit file in the regular template
include paths (see also C<register_template_path>, below). The template must
be called "C<device_port_column.tt>" on disk and live in the directory:

 plugin/myportcolumnplugin/device_port_column.tt

For a good example of this, see the L<App::NetdiscoX::Web::Plugin::Observium>
distribution.

=head1 Device Details

You can add items to the Device Details tab as well. A good example of this is
to add a link to the RANCID backup of the device in a WebSVN app somewhere.
Like Device Port Columns plugins, the plugin is a regular Template::Toolkit
snippet so can be any HTML output.

The details plugin has a name (used internally to locate files on disk) and
label (the heading for the row in the table).

To register the column call the following helper routine:

 register_device_details({
   name  => 'mydevicedetailsplugin',
   label => 'My Device Details Heading',
 });

App::Netdisco searches for one Template::Toolkit file in the regular template
include paths (see also C<register_template_path>, below). The template must
be called "C<device_details.tt>" on disk and live in the directory:

 plugin/mydevicedetailsplugin/device_details.tt

For a good example of this, see the L<App::NetdiscoX::Web::Plugin::RANCID>
distribution.

=head1 User Authorization

All Dancer route handlers must have proper authorization configured. This is
not difficult. Make sure that your module loads the
L<Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible> module (as shown above).

For each route handler you either simply require that a user be logged in, or
that the user is an administrator.

To require a logged in user, include the C<require_login> wrapper:

 get '/ajax/content/search/newfeature' => require_login sub {
    # etc .....

To require an administrator, specify their role:

 get '/ajax/control/admin/newfeature' => require_role admin => sub {
    # etc .....

Finally in case you need it, the other role a user can have is
C<port_control>:

 ajax '/ajax/portcontrol' => require_role port_control => sub {
    # etc .....

Take care over the subtle differences in syntax, especially the placement of
the fat comma ("C<< => >>").

=head1 Database Connections

The Netdisco database is available via the C<netdisco> schema key, as below.
You can also use the C<external_databases> configuration item to set up
connections to other databases.

 # possibly install another database driver
 ~netdisco/bin/localenv cpanm --notest DBD::mysql
 
 # deployment.yml
 external_databases:
   - tag: externaldb
     dsn: 'dbi:mysql:dbname=myexternaldb;host=192.0.2.1'
     user: oliver
     password: letmein
 
 # plugin code
 use Dancer::Plugin::DBIC;
 
 schema('netdisco')->resultset('Devices')->search({vendor => 'cisco'});
 schema('externaldb')->resultset('MyTable')->search({field => 'foobar'});

You'll need to install a L<DBIx::Class> Schema and also set C<schema_class> to
its name within the C<external_databases> setting, for the second example
above.

=head1 Templates

All of Netdisco's web page templates are stashed away in its distribution,
probably installed in your system's or user's Perl directory. It's not
recommended that you mess about with those files.

So in order to replace a template with your own version, or to reference a
template file of your own in your plugin, you need a new path:

 package App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::Search::MyNewFeature
  
 use File::ShareDir 'dist_dir';
 register_template_path(
   dist_dir( 'App-Netdisco-Web-Plugin-Search-MyNewFeature' ));

The "C<views>" subdirectory of the registered path will be searched before the
built-in C<App::Netdisco> path. We recommend use of the L<File::ShareDir>
module to package and ship templates along with your plugin, as shown.

Each path added using C<register_template_path> is searched I<before> any
existing paths in the template config. See the
L<App::NetdiscoX::Web::Plugin::Observium> distribution for a working example.

=head2 Template Variables

Some useful variables are made available in your templates automatically by
App::Netdisco:

=over 4

=item  C<search_node>

A path and query string which links to the Node tab of the Search page,
together with the correct default search options set.

=item  C<search_device>

A path and query string which links to the Device tab of the Search page,
together with the correct default search options set.

=item  C<device_ports>

A path and query sting which links to the Ports tab of the Device page,
together with the correct default column view options set.

=item  C<uri_base>

Used for linking to static content within App::Netdisco safely if the base of
the app is relocated, for example:

 <link rel="stylesheet" href="[% uri_base %]/css/toastr.css"/>

=item  C<uri_for>

Simply the Dancer C<uri_for> method. Allows you to do things like this in the
template safely if the base of the app is relocated:

 <a href="[% uri_for('/search') %]" ...>

=item  C<self_options>

Available in the Device tabs, use this if you need to refer back to the
current page with some additional parameters, for example:

 <a href="[% uri_for('/device', self_options) %]&foo=bar" ...>

=back

=head1 Javascript and Stylesheets

A simple mechanism exists for loading additional Javascript and CSS documents.
This is done in the C<< <head> >> section of the web page.

Within a Template include path (see C<register_template_path>, above) create a
directory called "C<plugin>" and within that another directory named after
your plugin (e.g. "C<mynewfeature>"). The Javascript and/or CSS files must
then be named "C<mynewfeature.js>" and "C<mynewfeature.css>" respectively.
For example:

  plugin/mynewfeature/mynewfeature.js
  plugin/mynewfeature/mynewfeature.css

Tell App::Netdisco that you wish to load one or the other using the following
helper routines:

  register_javascript('mynewfeature');
  register_css('mynewfeature');

Note that this searches all template include paths, both those built into the
application and those configured in your plugin(s) with
C<register_template_path>.

=head1 Naming and File Location

There are several options for how you name, distribute and install your
App::Netdisco plugin.

=head2 Namespaces

As mentioned in L<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin>, official Netdisco plugins live
in the C<App::Netdisco::Web::Plugin::> namespace. You can use this namespace
and submit the product to the Netdisco developer team for consideration for
inclusion in the official distribution.

Alternatively you can release the plugin to CPAN under your own account. In
that case we request that you instead use the C<App::NetdiscoX::Web::Plugin::>
namespace (note the "X"). Users can load such modules by using the
abbreviated form "X::MyPluginName" which is then expanded to the full package.

=head2 File Location

If writing your own plugins, Netdisco supports a local include path which is
usually C<~/site_plugins> (or C<${NETDISCO_HOME}/site_plugins>).

This means if your plugin is called
"App::NetdiscoX::Web::Plugin::MyPluginName" then it could live at:

 ~/site_plugins/App/NetdiscoX/Web/Plugin/MyPluginName.pm

This feature should make development of new plugins or maintenance of local
plugins much more straighforward.

=head1 Plugin Configuration

You can support new configuration items which the user should add to their
C<~/environments/deployment.yml> file. Please use a single Hash-Ref option
named "C<plugin_mypluginname>" (if your plugin's called C<mypluginname>). For
example:

 plugin_observium:
   webhost: "web-server.example.com"
   open_in_new_window: true

You can then refer to this configuration in your plugin module:

 my $webhost = setting('plugin_observium')->{'webhost'};

Or in templates via Dancer's C<settings> key:

 <a href="http://[% settings.plugin_observium.webhost | uri %]/>Observium</a>

=cut