Plug-ins

Plug-ins connect to the system using the EPOC Component Object Model (ECom). ECom is based on client/server architecture and provides services to instantiate, resolve, and destroy instances of plug-ins at run time. For more information, see the ECom Architecture.

Figure 1. ECom framework

A hostile or malfunctioning plug-in may cause crashes or security leaks, even on otherwise well-tested applications. The platform security architecture protects the processes by verifying that the plug-in has equal or greater set of capabilities than the process in which it is loaded. For more information, see the ECom and the Platform Security Architecture.

For examples, see Plug-in Framework (ECom) Examples.

Communication plug-ins

It is possible to use plug-ins to implement additional functionality to serial, socket, and messaging frameworks. These plug-ins are especially important for security because they deal with communication.

  • For serial communication there are serial protocol modules (CSY modules ), which are loaded by the Serial Comms Server. For more information on serial communication, see Serial Communications Server.

  • For socket-based communication there are protocol modules (PRT), which are loaded by the Socket Server. For more information on socket-based communication, see Socket Server.

  • For messaging there are Message Type Modules (MTM), which include both client and server components. MTMs are a set of dlls rather than a single dll. For more information, see Message Type Module.