6.5.6 Monitoring and Lifecycle Controls

To monitor and control the lifecycle of plugins, browse to the MWS home page (for example, https://servername/mws). Log in as the admin user, then click Plugins > Plugin Monitoring. This page displays the current state of all plugins as well as their polling status:

Click to enlarge

If plugins are created from plugin types that do not have a poll method, their lifecycle controls will be limited. Any information below that mentions polling does not apply to the 'no-polling' plugin shown in the screenshots.

Active Plugins

Active plugins are those that are in the Started or Paused states. These are available to receive events such as polling. If paused, a plugin will not receive events but is not actually stopped, therefore no stop events are triggered.

The following images demonstrate the status of plugins in the active states.

Started plugins that can include the relative time of the last poll as well as the time of the next poll in a countdown format. Action buttons are available to stop or pause the plugin as well as trigger an immediate poll event.

Paused plugins that can include only the last polling time. Action buttons are available to stop or resume the plugin, as well as trigger an immediate poll event.

Disabled Plugins

Disabled plugins are those that are in the Stopped or Errored states. These plugins do not receive events such as polling. If errored, a plugin can either be stopped, which represents a 'clearing' of the error, or started normally. However, if no action is taken on an errored plugin, it likely will not start due to the fact that most plugins are put into the errored state during startup of the plugin.

The following images demonstrate the representation of plugins in the disabled states.

Stopped plugins. A single action button is available to attempt to start the plugin.

An errored plugin. As mentioned previously, action buttons are available to stop the plugin or clear the error as well as attempt to start the plugin. If the start fails, an error message will display.