LMS Automatic Deployment via Ansible

[marioqxx]

I want to create an Ansible tool for deploying LMS. This ideally not only installs the LMS instance, but also automatically installs Plugins and configures LMS as well as the Plugins. So far the CLI seems to be the best approach to configure. What I however failed to achieve is, installing Plugins.
I do not want to follow this here: https://forums.slimdevices.com/forum/user-forums/logitech-media-server/105068-manually-installing-plugin-zips/page3
because the Plugins are not "natively" installed through the PluginManager. In the Extension Plugin I have found the "appsquery" CLI. This seems to call appsQuery, which in turn calls "_appsQueryCB" which then finally calls findUpdates. So there seems to be a way through the CLI to achieve this.
I have added Logging-Output in my local code to Plugin/Extenions/Plugin.pm and tried to figure out what to enter on the CLI. However I am stuck now, as it seems there needs to be an "arg" parameter and its content needs to be a HASH. The command-Parsing in Request.pm however only converts the CLI-string into an array. Anyone here that knows how this CLI-command works or was supposed to work?

Example: Set logging for Extension-Plugin (and CLI-Plugin) to Debug and enter:

appsquery args:something

This will through an error in the log.

Thank you

[michaelherger]

I'd recommend you ask this question in the forums, as there are many more users participating in discussions.

You could look at the web UI, what is being sent when you install a plugin through it.

What's the larger context of your plan? Are you trying to deploy to a larger number of systems?

[marioqxx]

@michaelherger: I just got one idea, which might work. I did implement the ansible script the complicated way and manipulate the files state.prefs and extensions.prefs manually, i.e. the server must not be running. However it shall be possible to apply the very same procedure I use to configure. Because telnet did not work I settled to the json-API interface.
I tried:
curl -g -X POST -d '{"id":1,"method":"slim.request","params":["",["pref","plugin.state:AATest","needs-install"]]}' http://myhost:9000/jsonrpc.js
It did what it is supposed to do. It did add AATest and the associated _ts_AATest lines to state.prefs. If you replace AATest with the plugin-name, the first step of my above described procedure is completed. Note: the _ts_-part is needed, without it my tests failed.
Manipulating the extensions.prefs-file works in the same way:
Reading works with:
curl -g -X POST -d '{"id":1,"method":"slim.request","params":["",["pref","plugin.extensions:plugin","?"]]}' http://myhost:9000/jsonrpc.js
writing with:
curl -g -X POST -d '{"id":1,"method":"slim.request","params":["",["pref","plugin.extensions:plugin",{"HaHa":1,"HoHo":1}]]}' http://myhost:9000/jsonrpc.js
because the plugin-setting is a dictionary. If it were a list, such as mediadirs, then the "{}" needs to be replaced by "[]":
curl -g -X POST -d '{"id":1,"method":"slim.request","params":["",["pref","mediadirs",["/media","/opt"]]]}' http://myhost:9000/jsonrpc.js
Concerning your comment:
"LMS already uses a configuration file to understand which plugin to install at startup. But that only works if the file already has been downloaded ahead of time."
Is there an easier way than the one above?

[michaelherger]

I don't think there's any good solution to automatically install 3rd party plugins yet. That's why I hoped you'd come up with a nice pull request 😁.

[marioqxx]

I have created the repository and a quick README to give you an idea how this looks like. You will find it here: https://github.com/marioqxx/lms/tree/main.
I certainly understand your desire, having some functionality added to the code. I do not really have an idea what the use-case would be and how this should look like. You stated that you want to ship some Plugins (and install them) with the *.deb package. This shall be easily accomplished with my above explanations. In the *.deb package place the archives in the package such, that after installation they are in the DownloadedPlugins-directory and change the extensions.prefs and state.prefs files.
If you want a separate config-file, then you need additional code that parses the config-file and run the commands. This once again could be accomplished with a short script and the above curl-commands. In this script, there can be easily some lines of code added for automated plugin-download.

On the other hand, the Download in LMS is async and triggers re-start upon completion of download. Any script would be more complicated to monitor download progress from the LMS than any own written code (which is basically calling wget).

So can you please specify what exactly you look for.

[marioqxx]

@michaelherger: I think I have found the anchor point where the WEB-page hooks in. It is Slim/Plugin/Extensions/Settings.pm. Within that file sub handler is called. In line 74 of that file you will find: "# set policy for which plugins are installed/uninstalled etc". You also see the complication I mentioned above regarding async download at line 146 and line 271 (You need to wait until download is complete and Restart-server message is shown to complete Plugin-installation from WEB-GUI). If the server is restarted during download, then everything is back to beginning and requested plugin-installation is forgotten it seems.

The sub handler in turn seems to be linked somehow to Slim/Plugin/Extensions/Settings.pm, sub initPlugin, line 154.

[michaelherger]

That's the handler for the web page where you can install plugins. In order to trigger installation from outside the server itself (using a file, at startup), that's probably an entry point to take inspiration from. But it won't be called unless you hit the running server using a web request. Which is not exactly what we're looking for, is it?