Plugins

Repository

Mica plugins available are:

Name Type Description Depends API
mica-search-es mica-search
Mica search engine based on Elasticsearch 2.4. Can be used embedded in Mica (default)
or configured to connect to an Elasticsearch cluster.
No dependencies Search Plugin API
mica-search-es7 mica-search
Mica search engine based on Elasticsearch 7.x.
To be configured to connect to an Elasticsearch cluster.
Elasticsearch server Search Plugin API
mica-tables-spss mica-tables
Read dataset dictionaries from SPSS files.
Reference implementation of the mica-tables plugin type.
No dependencies Table Source Plugin API
mica-taxonomies-files mica-taxonomies
Read taxonomies from local files or from a URL.
Reference implementation of the mica-taxonomies plugin type.
No dependencies Taxonomies Plugin API

Installation

All plugins are to be deployed as a directory at the following location: MICA_HOME/plugins.

Automatic Installation

Because having a search engine is an absolute requirement, Mica server will check at startup that there is a plugin of type mica-search and if it’s not the case, the latest version of the mica-search-es plugin (that applies to the current Mica server version) will be automatically downloaded and installed without needing a server restart. If for any reason this plugin cannot be automatically downloaded (network issue), the Mica start-up will fail and you will need to install the plugin manually.

Manual Installation

Available plugins can be downloaded from OBiBa Plugins Repository. The manual installation procedure should be performed as follow:

  • Download the plugin of interest (zip file) from OBiBa Plugins Repository,
  • Unzip plugin package in MICA_HOME/plugins folder. Note that the plugin folder name does not matter, Mica will discover the plugin through the plugin.properties file that is expected to be found in the plugin folder.
  • Read the installation instructions (if any) of the plugin to identify the system dependencies or any other information,
  • Restart Mica.

Configuration

The MICA_HOME/plugins folder contains all the Mica plugins that will be inspected at startup. A plugin is enabled if it has:

  • A valid plugin.properties file,
  • In case of several versions of the same plugin are installed, the latest one is selected.

The layout of the plugin folder is as follow:

MICA_HOME/
└── plugins
    └── <plugin-folder>
        ├── lib
        │   └── <plugin-lib>.jar
        ├── LICENSE.txt
        ├── README.md
        ├── plugin.properties
        └── site.properties

Inside the plugin’s folder, a properties file, plugin.properties, has two sections:

  • The required properties that describe the plugin (name, type, version etc.)
  • Some default properties required at runtime (path to third-party executables for instance).

Still in the plugin’s folder, a site-specific properties file, site.properties, is to be used for defining the local configuration of the plugin. Note that this file will be copied when upgrading the plugin.

Backups

Mica assigns a data folder location to the plugin: MICA_HOME/data/<plugin-name> where plugin-name is the name defined in the plugin.properties file. This folder is then the one to be backed-up.