description: Develop and use a plugin with the managed plugin system keywords: “API, Usage, plugins, documentation, developer” title: Managed plugin system

Docker Engine managed plugin system

Docker Engine's plugins system allows you to install, start, stop, and remove plugins using Docker Engine. This mechanism is currently only available for volume drivers, but more plugin driver types will be available in future releases.

For information about the legacy plugin system available in Docker Engine 1.12 and earlier, see Understand legacy Docker Engine plugins.

Note: Docker Engine managed plugins are currently not supported on Windows daemons.

Installing and using a plugin

Plugins are distributed as Docker images and can be hosted on Docker Hub or on a private registry.

To install a plugin, use the docker plugin install command, which pulls the plugin from Docker hub or your private registry, prompts you to grant permissions or capabilities if necessary, and enables the plugin.

To check the status of installed plugins, use the docker plugin ls command. Plugins that start successfully are listed as enabled in the output.

After a plugin is installed, you can use it as an option for another Docker operation, such as creating a volume.

In the following example, you install the sshfs plugin, verify that it is enabled, and use it to create a volume.

Install the sshfs plugin.

$ docker plugin install vieux/sshfs

Plugin "vieux/sshfs" is requesting the following privileges:
- network: [host]
- capabilities: [CAP_SYS_ADMIN]
Do you grant the above permissions? [y/N] y

vieux/sshfs

The plugin requests 2 privileges:

It needs access to the host network.
It needs the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability, which allows the plugin to run the mount command.

Check that the plugin is enabled in the output of docker plugin ls.

$ docker plugin ls

ID                    NAME                  TAG                 DESCRIPTION                   ENABLED
69553ca1d789          vieux/sshfs           latest              the `sshfs` plugin            true

Create a volume using the plugin. This example mounts the /remote directory on host 1.2.3.4 into a volume named sshvolume. This volume can now be mounted into containers.
```
$ docker volume create \
  -d vieux/sshfs \
  --name sshvolume \
  -o sshcmd=user@1.2.3.4:/remote

sshvolume
```

Verify that the volume was created successfully.

$ docker volume ls

DRIVER              NAME
vieux/sshfs         sshvolume

Start a container that uses the volume sshvolume.

$ docker run -v sshvolume:/data busybox ls /data

<content of /remote on machine 1.2.3.4>

To disable a plugin, use the docker plugin disable command. To completely remove it, use the docker plugin remove command. For other available commands and options, see the command line reference.

Developing a plugin

The rootfs directory

The rootfs directory represents the root filesystem of the plugin. In this example, it was created from a Dockerfile:

Note: The /run/docker/plugins directory is mandatory inside of the plugin's filesystem for docker to communicate with the plugin.

$ git clone https://github.com/vieux/docker-volume-sshfs
$ cd docker-volume-sshfs
$ docker build -t rootfsimage .
$ id=$(docker create rootfsimage true) # id was cd851ce43a403 when the image was created
$ sudo mkdir -p myplugin/rootfs
$ sudo docker export "$id" | sudo tar -x -C myplugin/rootfs
$ docker rm -vf "$id"
$ docker rmi rootfsimage

The config.json file

The config.json file describes the plugin. See the plugins config reference.

Consider the following config.json file.

{
	"description": "sshFS plugin for Docker",
	"documentation": "https://docs.docker.com/engine/extend/plugins/",
	"entrypoint": ["/go/bin/docker-volume-sshfs"],
	"network": {
		   "type": "host"
		   },
	"interface" : {
		   "types": ["docker.volumedriver/1.0"],
		   "socket": "sshfs.sock"
	},
	"capabilities": ["CAP_SYS_ADMIN"]
}

This plugin is a volume driver. It requires a host network and the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability. It depends upon the /go/bin/docker-volume-sshfs entrypoint and uses the /run/docker/plugins/sshfs.sock socket to communicate with Docker Engine. This plugin has no runtime parameters.

Creating the plugin

A new plugin can be created by running docker plugin create <plugin-name> ./path/to/plugin/data where the plugin data contains a plugin configuration file config.json and a root filesystem in subdirectory rootfs.

After that the plugin <plugin-name> will show up in docker plugin ls. Plugins can be pushed to remote registries with docker plugin push <plugin-name>.