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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd">
<chapter id="plugins">
<title>Plugins</title>
<sect1 id="plugins-introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
Plugins have keys and policy, and also install a default system
preferences file.
</para>
<para>
We need to set system preferences when there is no user logged in or we
are very early in the boot sequence.
We do this with each plugin installing a text file with the plugin key
name, the value, and optionally the public switch.
</para>
<para>
The plugin preferences are read from <filename>/etc/ohm/plugins/{name}</filename>
Comments are lines with first character <literal>#</literal> and then the
rest of the line is ignored.
Files are flat text with the following formal description,
<literal>plugin_prefix.key value type public</literal>
</para>
<important>
<para>
There is a single space between the values.
Line endings have to be UNIX not WIN or MAC.
Parsing is very strict, and <literal>ohmd</literal> will exit with an
error if the syntax is not perfect. This is by design.
</para>
</important>
<important>
<para>
Do not set internal state keys with their initial value here.
These should be added using <literal>ohm_plugin_conf_provide()</literal>
during <literal>load()</literal> and then the values populated in the
<literal>coldplug()</literal> method.
This ensures the correct ordering of coldplug.
</para>
</important>
<note>
<para>
Public is only set if the key can be changed by the session, and if the
key is tried to be set, the set method will fail.
This is a way to enforce fine-grained rules on users when writing
PolicyKit rules for every action would be too great an overhead.
</para>
</note>
<mediaobject id="plugins-dbus">
<imageobject>
<imagedata format="PNG" fileref="ohm-dbus-access.png" align="center"/>
</imageobject>
</mediaobject>
<para>
Plugins have direct access to the keystore and can read and write any key
even if private.
The DBUS interface to the keystore is however limited to only setting
public keys to enforce security policy.
The DBUS interface should only be used to set preferences, it should
never be used to set or change policy - this is the job for the plugin.
</para>
<para>
Plugins can tell <literal>ohmd</literal> that other plugins are required
for certain functionality, for instance, the backlight unit on a mobile
phone may require the temperature module to be present, so it can do the
temperature shutdown checks.
This is done with <literal>ohm_plugin_require()</literal>.
<literal>ohmd</literal> daemon will fail to load if any required plugin
is not present after the plugins have finished initializing.
</para>
<para>
Plugins can also tell <literal>ohmd</literal> that other plugins are suggested for certain
functionality, for instance, the backlight unit may work best when the
battery plugin is loaded so we can dim when we are low on power.
This is done with <literal>ohm_plugin_suggest()</literal>.
<literal>ohmd</literal> daemon will print a message to the console if any
suggested plugin is not present.
</para>
<para>
Plugins can also tell <literal>ohmd</literal> that other plugins are
banned, for instance, a proprietary battery discharge plugin maybe
incompatible with the standard battery plugin.
This is done with <literal>ohm_plugin_prevent()</literal>.
<literal>ohmd</literal> will fail to load if any prevented plugin is
manually loaded or loaded through a dependency of another plugin.
</para>
<para>
The files <filename>/etc/ohm/require</filename>,
<filename>/etc/ohm/suggest</filename> and
<filename>/etc/ohm/prevent</filename> allow the system builder to set
the modules at startup.
For instance, on a fast PC we may want to suggest
<literal>libcpufreq.so</literal>, but we may not want this for embedded
ARM.
Comments are lines with first character <literal>#</literal> and then the
rest of the line is ignored.
</para>
<para>
Plugins must also tell OHM that they will provide certain keys.
This is done using <literal>ohm_plugin_conf_provide()</literal> and
then OHM can check to see if the plugin is trying to provide keys
that are managed by another plugin.
This will stop the system doing odd things when two plugins try to write
to one key and is a good check when building policy.
In production code this check should be turned off using the command
line argument <literal>--no-checks</literal> as this speeds up the
initial coldplug considerably.
</para>
<para>
To get key values from the global keystore, a plugin must use
<literal>ohm_plugin_conf_get_key()</literal> which will return false
if the key is not available.
Keys can be set using <literal>ohm_plugin_conf_set_key</literal>.
</para>
<para>
A plugin may want to be notified when a key changes.
In typical code, the key and the value would be passed to the plugin
and then the key name compared against a fixed list.
This is too slow for the plugin system in OHM, as many plugins may
have to be chained together for a policy action.
It was found that repeated <literal>strcmp()</literal>'s on all the
changed value keys was causing high load on embedded machines.
</para>
<para>
To register interest in a key change, a plugin must call
<literal>ohm_plugin_conf_interested()</literal> along with an integer ID
unique to the plugin.
The integer ID does not have to be unique among the other plugins.
When the key is changed in OHM by another plugin of the session user,
this is matched against a hash table for O(1) complexity, and then
a list iterated over sending the indervidual ID's to the plugins.
Matching integer ID's in plugins is much faster than matching strings,
for a small coldplug overhead.
See the example plugin code for more details.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="plugins-defaults">
<title>Default plugins</title>
<para>
Some plugins are shipped by default and provide typical use cases.
</para>
<sect2 id="plugins-backlight">
<title>Backlight Adjustment</title>
<para>
Backlight brightness and state can be changed on most backlight hardware.
These are the optional DBUS methods for controlling the brightness of
the backlight.
</para>
<informaltable>
<tgroup cols="2">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>DBUS Object Path:</entry>
<entry><literal>/org/freedesktop/ohm/Backlight</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>DBUS Interface:</entry>
<entry><literal>org.freedesktop.ohm.Backlight</literal></entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<sect3 id="plugins-backlight-keys">
<title>
<literal>Exported keys</literal>
</title>
<para>
Keys exported by this plugin:
</para>
<informaltable>
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Key</entry>
<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><literal>backlight.value_ac</literal></entry>
<entry>Brightness in percentage when on AC</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>backlight.value_battery</literal></entry>
<entry>Brightness in percentage when on battery</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>backlight.value_idle</literal></entry>
<entry>Brightness in percentage when idle</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>backlight.time_idle</literal></entry>
<entry>
The amount of time in seconds before the backlight is put
into idle mode, or zero to disable.
Idle mode is typically dimming for most backlight devices.
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>backlight.time_off</literal></entry>
<entry>
The amount of time in seconds before the backlight is turned
off, or zero to disable.
</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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