[BUG] Add Maven coordinates to list of available plugins

[nateynateynate]

What is the bug?

Someone at the community meeting brought this up today - the idea is that we can use the plugin install script with an official plugin name to install a plugin. But -- when visiting https://opensearch.org/docs/1.3/opensearch/install/plugins/#install-a-plugin , we state that plugins can be installed via "Maven Coordinates to a plugin zip file" as well as "A URL to a plugin zip file"

As we offer a list of official plugin names, but not a list of Maven Coordinates or URLs. They use Maven, and found themselves without guidance at all on where to get said plugins.

How can one reproduce the bug?

Visit https://opensearch.org/docs/1.3/opensearch/install/plugins/#install-a-plugin

What is the expected behavior?

A reference of Maven Coordinates for the plugins along with the list of official plugin names.

[JeffHuss]

This will require research. Who provides Maven coordinates?

[JeffHuss]

https://maven.apache.org/what-is-maven.html

[JeffHuss]

opensearch-project/OpenSearch#581

[JeffHuss]

opensearch-project/opensearch-build#716

[JeffHuss]

opensearch-project/opensearch-build#1823

[JeffHuss]

Looking for a SME to assist me with this. I need two pieces of information:

1. How to derive coordinates for any given plugin in the repo https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/opensearch/plugin/
2. How to display those coordinates in the documentation

I think a quick 5 minutes crash course is all I really need, but until I understand that I'm blocked.

I will continue looking for a SME to assist with this.

[JeffHuss]

Got the information I needed. Good to go on getting this added to the plugins list.

[rursprung]

note: when working with maven you usually don't write a URL but instead use the "maven coordinates" (i.e. group + artifact) and need to know on which maven repository it's published (as you publish it to maven this part isn't really relevant.

you could e.g. add one of the following URLs:

• directly to all org.opensearch.plugin artefacts on maven central
• the same list on maven repository (i prefer the visualisation on this page, but that's just personal)

either of these pages then also shows a ton of options on how to write the maven coordinates (which depends on the build system being used) as well as giving a direct download link.

note that there are also artefacts published there which are not the ZIP files (namely JAR files are being published which aren't of much use to end-users of OpenSearch), but i presume that anyone who wants to use OpenSearch plugins via maven will know how to find them

[JeffHuss]

Thanks for that info @rursprung! I was struggling a bit with trying to figure out how I should present the Maven coordinates in the docs. So you think a link to the Maven repository (I also share your preference for the second link) would suffice? Or could I go further to help OpenSearch users by adding in-line links to each individual artifact?

[JeffHuss]

Just to clarify - I feel like in-line links would be a little overkill. Just trying to figure out how a developer would most appreciate these being laid out.

[rursprung]

personally i don't need the direct links (and it'd be one more thing you'd have to constantly maintain), but surveys with a single participant might not yield representative results 😉

but as noted there are things listed there like OpenSearch Security which are proper plugins with a ZIP file published which you can install and other things like Lang Mustache (no clue what this is) which isn't a plugin you can install (and there's no ZIP file published for it). probably the easiest way to recognise them is that the ones you can install have a 4-digit version number and the others only a 3-digit (because they're part of OpenSearch itself and versioned with it). though that version numbering scheme might of course eventually change (as there are discussions to decouple the lifecycle of plugins from OpenSearch, which would then open the door to standard 3-digit version numbers for plugins).

[JeffHuss]

Thanks for the insights! That makes total sense. I had always wondered why we appended an extra .0 to the versions of some of the plugins when they otherwise had parity with the OS release version. That distinction, although I know it could change, is helpful to identify.

Just for my own clarity - do you think that just a single link to the Maven repo is all OS users/developers would need to get access to what they need?

[rursprung]

Just for my own clarity - do you think that just a single link to the Maven repo is all OS users/developers would need to get access to what they need?

i'd say this link here, combined with the critical information that not all plugins listed there are plugins which you can install using opensearch-plugin install (a description of what these are might be helpful, but you'd have to ask somebody who knows more about them; my presumption would be that those are pre-packaged with opensearch, even in the -min distribution, and can't be uninstalled), should be enough: https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.opensearch.plugin

[JeffHuss]

Nice. I did a little digging into plugins for another docs request so I think I've got a good idea of what can be installed and what comes bundled.