Using jre from third party

Hi, i was wondering if one could use .jre to extend Ignition functionality. I wanted to use JWTs for securing my webdev APIs and there is a Java package for that on Maven.

I have some other use cases in mind as well.

Would that be possible?

Using jar files from scripting is possible, but explicitly unsupported. The only supported avenue to bundle an arbitrary jar is to provide an entire custom module and expose the third party dependency's functionality via a system function or some other hook.

That said, if you search this forum you can find the directory on the gateway where you can drop arbitrary .jar files, and, upon restarting the gateway, they will be accessible to scripting in the matching scope(s), depending on exactly which directory you dropped the files in.

I'm being deliberately obtuse because this isn't a recommended option, and can cause you maintenance pain if you construct your entire system silently relying on an infrequently/never updated external dependency.

1 Like

Especially one that gets blown away whenever you upgrade Ignition.

What exactly happens here? Do the packages get deleted when upgrading?

The folder(s) in question literally make up Ignition. By definition, an upgrade wipes out anything old and replaces it with the dependencies from the new version of Ignition. They might be identical, and often are, but they're always fully included for the sake of correctness.