Struggling with plugin/scripts

hendrik · May 27, 2025, 9:54am

My types.zeek in ‘plugin/scripts’ is not preloaded.

I have created a plugin using zkg create --feature plugin --packagedir foobar. zkg.meta contains the following:

[template]
source = https://github.com/zeek/package-template
version = v3.1.7
zkg_version = 3.0.1-33
features = plugin

The created C++ code now needs a zeek type. I have inserted this type in plugin/scripts/types.zeek (and made sure that this file is loaded by plugin/scripts/__preload__.zeek).

Whether I install the plugin using zkg install or by calling zeek directly (whereby I have inserted the package folder in ZEEK_PLUGIN_PATH), I get the error message that my zeek type was not found.

If I now copy the __preload__.zeek and types.zeek from plugin/scripts to scripts, then both methods work as expected, my type is found and the plugin is working

What surprises me is that the build process creates a link to scripts in the build directory. I would expect this to point to plugin/scripts.

What am I missing here?

awelzel · May 27, 2025, 2:26pm

What am I missing here?

I don’t think it’s you, I believe the following ticket describes the same issue:

github.com/zeek/package-template

plugin: zkg install / make install installing wrong scripts

opened 12:42PM - 19 Jun 24 UTC

awelzel

I believe the culprit here is the CMake revamp removing support for `BRO_PLUGIN_…BASE`, but opening a ticket in the template repo as I'm not sure we want to reintroduce that and/or maybe there's a better idea how to go about that. Today, when creating a package with a plugin feature, there's two scripts directories - top-level and plugin specific. ``` ~/foobar$ tree scripts/ ./plugin scripts/ ├── __load__.zeek └── main.zeek ./plugin ├── scripts │ ├── __load__.zeek │ ├── __preload__.zeek │ └── types.zeek └── src ├── config.h.in ... ``` When running `zkg install` (or `make install` within build), the `scripts/` directory next to the installed `lib/` directory contains the content of the top-level `./scripts` directory rather than `./plugin/scripts` (which would have the `__preload__.zeek` or `types.zeek` files). This seems wrong: The `plugin/scripts` should've been used for this. Concretely, after a `make install` within `./build`: ``` /opt/zeek-6.2/lib/zeek/plugins/Zeek_FooBar/ ├── COPYING ├── lib │ ├── bif │ │ ├── foobar.bif.zeek │ │ └── __load__.zeek │ └── Zeek-FooBar.linux-x86_64.so ├── README ├── scripts │ ├── __load__.zeek │ └── main.zeek ├── VERSION └── __zeek_plugin__ ``` So 1) we won't have and load the right `__load__.zeek`, `__preload__.zeek` and `types.zeek` files automatically when the shared library is loaded and also 2) Zeek automatically attempts to load the top-level `./scripts` directory instead (which should require an explicit @load). ``` $ zeek -e 'event zeek_init(){}' Hello world! ``` --- @ckreibich - thoughts? Bringing back BRO_PLUGIN_BASE could work, but its usage seems brittle (as this ticket proofs). I don't know. Chatting with @bbannier and @J-Gras this is pretty messy. Given there have been no complaints so far, I wonder if we can do some more drastic changes rather than trying to fix anything up.

Mind making noise on that ticket, too?

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Struggling with plugin/scripts

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