Re: [PATCH common/manager/proxmox-widget-toolkit/storage/storage-plugin-examples v3 00/17] GUI Support for Custom Storage Plugins

["Thomas Ellmenreich" <t.ellmenreich@proxmox.com>]

First of all, I really like the idea of this, and I find it actually really
easy to use. Without having read anything about how to configure the UI, I was
quickly able to make changes that then also translated. That said, this also
means that all the errors I have found could be purely caused by
misconfiguration. In any case, here is a list of the things I have tried:

- Installed the Patchseries and Plugins on a VM and tried adding Storages of
  the 3 different Extra Plugin Types

- Made manual curl requests to the different Endpoints to see the return values

- Started playing around with the configuration of the 'backup-provider-dir-example'
  Plugin to test different edge cases. Here are most of the things I did:

  - Added one and then two multiline fields to see how they sorted.

  - Checked that optional fields are actually optional, and vice versa.

  - Made one of the multiline fields Fixed, and then checked how that showed
    when adding the Storage and when editing it.

  - Added a sensitive multiline field.

  - Added a normal string field that is not optional, as well as sensitive.

  - Added a multiline field to the advanced properties, while being optional
    as well as non optional.

  - Repeated some of the combinations with boolean, number and integer
    fields.

Looking at the code and during these tests, I have encountered some things.
Not everything might be important, but I will still list everything I have
noticed. And I should also add that I'm not sure if this series is the correct
moment to address some of the problems, as they might be more general ExtJs
problems.

- In some of the patches, there are a few strings that could be wrapped in
  `gettext` to allow for future translation.

- There seems to be an inconsistency in how required (or non optional) fields
  show up in the UI. When a field is marked as fixed and required, it has a
  red lining indicating the fact that it has to be set. But if it's only
  required, there is no red line. That said, upon trying to create the storage,
  a good error message is shown. So this is purely a UI/UX issue.

- When adding multiline fields, they show up in the bottom section of the
  popup UI, which is very nice. But when that field has the 'fixed' property set
  and you then open the editing UI, instead of showing up in the bottom section,
  the multiline field now shows up between the other properties. This is also
  just a UI issue, it caused a second of confusion for me though, as the quite
  wide multiline field suddenly showed up as a small fixed label, hidden
  between other properties.

- Adding newlines to a multiline field doesn't work and fails with this error:
  'Property contains a line feed (500)'. I'm guessing, but I think this is
  a problem with the `storage.cfg` file and not the UI.

- Setting multiline field as sensitive seems to do nothing to the field. It
  shows up as just a normal multiline field.

- I then added a new required string field and set that as sensitive, which
  correctly hides the content of the field. When I then try to save the
  storage, I get the following error: 'Missing value for required option "another-testing-prop" (500)'

- This is not an issue in my opinion, but I wanted to note it. Its possible
  to have a required field in the Advanced Properties without a default. Can
  be an annoying thing if a plugin creator sets it, but it would be a mistake
  on the creators part.

- Purely out of intuition I would have thought that the difference between
  number and integer is that the first allows decimals and the second does no.
  This is not the case, when adding a ',' or a '.' in both, the "decimal part"
  just disappears.

On Mon Jul 27, 2026 at 4:34 PM CEST, Max R. Carrara wrote:
> GUI Support for Custom Storage Plugins - v3
> ===========================================
>
> Notable Changes Since v2
> ------------------------
>
> - Drop the patternProperties RFC patches.
>
>   After some additional consideration, I decided that supporting
>   patternProperties is out of scope for this series, and probably
>   something that deserves its own series instead.
>
>   In turn, the 'x-advanced' and 'x-hidden' keys in the plugin property
>   schema returned by the new API endpoint are now set through two
>   new hashes in `plugindata()`. This means that each plugin has to
>   define which properties it considers advanced and which should be
>   hidden in the UI itself, just like with sensitive properties.
>
> - Rename the 'sensitive' key that is returned as part of the plugin
>   property schema by the new API endpoint to 'x-sensitive'. This is done
>   in order to make it clear that this keyword is not part of our overall
>   JSON schema, since each plugins' properties' schemas are returned
>   directly.
>
>   Note that we can still "promote" 'x-sensitive' and have it exist in
>   the general JSON schema as 'sensitive' at some point in the future,
>   but that's out of scope for this series.
>
> - Sort modules in patch #13 (thanks @Jakob for the suggestion!)
>
> - Update the SSHFS example plugin and make use of the new hashes in
>   `plugindata()`, `title` keys in `properties()`, and also bump it's API
>   version, with all changes that are necessary for this.
>
> Thanks again to everyone who reviewed and/or tested the previous
> iterations of this series, as well as to those that provided feedback!
> It's much appreciated.
>
> Previous Versions
> -----------------
>
> rfc-v1: https://lore.proxmox.com/pve-devel/20250908180058.530119-1-m.carrara@proxmox.com/
> rfc-v2: https://lore.proxmox.com/pve-devel/20251121165858.818307-1-m.carrara@proxmox.com/
> v1: https://lore.proxmox.com/pve-devel/20260623143402.772452-1-m.carrara@proxmox.com/
> v2: https://lore.proxmox.com/pve-devel/20260717154943.696411-1-m.carrara@proxmox.com/
>
> Summary of Changes
> ------------------
>
> pve-common:
>
> Max R. Carrara (1):
>   json schema: add multiline string format
>
>  src/PVE/JSONSchema.pm | 5 +++++
>  1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)
>
>
> pve-storage:
>
> Max R. Carrara (8):
>   api: plugins/storage: add initial routes and endpoints
>   api: plugins/storage/plugin: include schema in plugin metadata
>   api: plugins/storage/plugin: mark sensitive properties in schema
>   api: plugins/storage/plugin: factor plugin metadata code into helper
>   api: plugins/storage/plugin: add plugins' 'content' to their metadata
>   all plugins: add 'title' to properties, adapt 'description's
>   all plugins, api: mark certain properties as advanced in plugindata()
>   all plugins, api: mark certain properties as hidden in plugindata()
>
>  src/PVE/API2/Makefile                  |   1 +
>  src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Makefile          |  18 +++
>  src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Storage.pm        |  54 ++++++++
>  src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Storage/Makefile  |  17 +++
>  src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Storage/Plugin.pm | 172 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  src/PVE/Storage/BTRFSPlugin.pm         |   9 ++
>  src/PVE/Storage/CIFSPlugin.pm          |  22 +++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/CephFSPlugin.pm        |  16 ++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/DirPlugin.pm           |  23 +++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/ESXiPlugin.pm          |   3 +
>  src/PVE/Storage/ISCSIDirectPlugin.pm   |   4 +
>  src/PVE/Storage/ISCSIPlugin.pm         |  10 +-
>  src/PVE/Storage/LVMPlugin.pm           |  16 ++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/LvmThinPlugin.pm       |   7 +-
>  src/PVE/Storage/NFSPlugin.pm           |  18 ++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/PBSPlugin.pm           |   7 +-
>  src/PVE/Storage/Plugin.pm              |  46 +++++--
>  src/PVE/Storage/RBDPlugin.pm           |  20 ++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/ZFSPlugin.pm           |  20 ++-
>  src/PVE/Storage/ZFSPoolPlugin.pm       |  13 +-
>  20 files changed, 459 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Makefile
>  create mode 100644 src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Storage.pm
>  create mode 100644 src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Storage/Makefile
>  create mode 100644 src/PVE/API2/Plugins/Storage/Plugin.pm
>
>
> proxmox-widget-toolkit:
>
> Max R. Carrara (3):
>   form: introduce new 'proxmoxtextarea' field
>   utils: introduce helper function getFieldDefFromPropertySchema
>   acme: use helper to construct ExtJS fields from property schemas
>
>  src/Utils.js                 | 150 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  src/form/TextAreaField.js    |  47 +++++++++++
>  src/window/ACMEPluginEdit.js |  42 +++-------
>  3 files changed, 210 insertions(+), 29 deletions(-)
>
>
> pve-manager:
>
> Max R. Carrara (4):
>   api2: sort modules and API method registrations
>   api: add API routes 'plugins' and 'plugins/storage'
>   ui: storage view: display error when no editor for storage type exists
>   ui: storage: add basic UI integration for custom storage plugins
>
>  PVE/API2.pm                        |  26 ++--
>  PVE/API2/Makefile                  |   1 +
>  PVE/API2/Plugins.pm                |  61 +++++++++
>  www/manager6/Makefile              |   1 +
>  www/manager6/dc/StorageView.js     | 132 ++++++++++++++-----
>  www/manager6/storage/Base.js       |   2 +
>  www/manager6/storage/CustomEdit.js | 198 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  7 files changed, 377 insertions(+), 44 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 PVE/API2/Plugins.pm
>  create mode 100644 www/manager6/storage/CustomEdit.js
>
>
> pve-storage-plugin-examples:
>
> Max R. Carrara (1):
>   sshfs: Update SSHFS plugin
>
>  .../src/PVE/Storage/Custom/SSHFSPlugin.pm     | 27 ++++++++++++++-----
>  1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>
>
> Summary over all repositories:
>   32 files changed, 1072 insertions(+), 116 deletions(-)
>
> --
> Generated by murpp 0.12.0