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Using community plugins

Pioreactor has added a platform so that community members can make their own extensions and share them with others. We call these plugins. (Below is how to install plugins - if you are looking to create your own plugins, see here.)

Installing plugins​

From your Pioreactor's interface, the "Plugins" button on the left navigation bar will display all your currently installed plugins, and some recommended plugins. We also encourage you to explore our forums for more plugins created by the community.

Plugins page with Install plugin by name highlighted

If you run Pioreactors on a shared network and want to prevent plugin changes from the UI, see Security hardening.

Automations installed via plugins​

Some plugins add new automations to your Pioreactor. After installing, new dosing, LED, or temperature automations will be available in the list of automations available to you.

Uninstalling plugins​

You can uninstall plugins from the same page, too. These will remove the action on the Pioreactor's card, but won't delete the section in your config.ini. Also, if a SQL table was installed with the plugin, the table will not be deleted.

I don't have internet access - how can I install the plugin?​

Option 1: install from a USB drive​

Copy the plugin's .whl file onto a USB drive, attach it to the leader, and install it from the Plugins page. See Install plugins from USB for the full steps.

Option 2: copy the wheel over SSH​

  1. First, get the latest .whl file here onto any computer that can SSH into the Pioreactor.
  2. To get this .whl file onto a Pioreactor, use either scp, WinSCP, or FileZilla. Note: if you upload the .whl file to your leader Pioreactor first, you can distribute the .whl file to all your workers with pios cp <location of .whl file>
  3. Once the .whl file is on the Pioreactor, use the following to install the plugin: 
    pio plugins install <name-of-plugin> --source <location of .whl file>
    For example: 
    pio plugins install pioreactor-air-bubbler --source ~/pioreactor_air_bubbler-0.3.1-py3-none-any.whl

Install plugins from the SD card​

You can stage plugin wheels and their dependencies on the SD card before booting. See Provisioning images for the folder layout, installation behavior, and troubleshooting.

Alternative: putting Python files in the the plugins folder​

An alternative way to install a plugin is to place a Python file in the /home/pioreactor/.pioreactor/plugins directory on the Raspberry Pi. This is good for one-off scripts or plugins you are demoing or testing. See more about writing and distributing plugins.