Activating the extension

An extension in extension/ does nothing until it is switched on. Switch it on for the whole installation (ActiveExtensions[]) or for one siteaccess (ActiveAccessExtensions[]), then let the system see its classes and settings.

In the administration

Open Setup > Extensions, click Activate on the extension's card, then Review changes and Apply changes. The review shows the resulting ActiveExtensions[] lines; the page then says what it saved and where it kept a backup of the settings file. It regenerates the autoloads and clears the caches the change needs.

On the command line

./console exp:ini add 'site.ini/ExtensionSettings/ActiveExtensions[]' ezflow global --dry-run
./console exp:ini add 'site.ini/ExtensionSettings/ActiveExtensions[]' ezflow global
php bin/php/ezpgenerateautoloads.php -e
php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-tag=ini
php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-id=template-override

The first command only prints the change; the second writes it into settings/override/site.ini.append.php, with a backup in var/backup/ini/. For one siteaccess, use the scope siteaccess:<name> and the variable ActiveAccessExtensions[]. The written lines look like this:

[ExtensionSettings]
ActiveExtensions[]=ezflow

When Velocity or PHP-FPM serves the site, their workers keep the old classes and settings: php bin/php/console exp:velocity deploy regenerates the autoloads, clears the caches and reloads them in the right order.

More than the switch

Many extensions also need a database table, a content class, a role policy or a cronjob part. Read the extension's own page in the extension catalogue for those steps. To switch an extension off, remove its line again (or use Deactivate on the Extensions page), then run the same autoload and cache commands.

Previous step: Extracting the files. Next: Extension load ordering.