# Error installing local plugin

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-installing-local-plugin/206175>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [November 1, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-installing-local-plugin/206175 "2019-11-01T14:19:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![devbot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de0a6/32.png) [@devbot](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/devbot)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-installing-local-plugin/206175/1 "2019-11-01T14:19:04Z")

</div>

I have in my kibana directory a custom plugin "custom\_plugin" My impression from reading [this](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/6.2/install-plugin.html#_installing_plugins_to_an_arbitrary_directory) portion of the elastic docs is that the directory needs to be zipped.

So based on that, I do:

```auto
zip -r custom_plugin.zip custom_plugin

```

Then, adhering to the elastic doc example, I run:

```auto
mkdir plugins

bin/kibana-plugin install file:///custom_plugin.zip -d plugins

```

I get the following output:

> Warning: Using the -d, --plugin-dir option is deprecated, and is known to not work for all plugins, including X-Pack.
> 
> Attempting to transfer from file:///custom\_plugin.zip Error: ENOTFOUND
> 
> Attempting to transfer from [https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/kibana-plugins/file:///custom\_plugin.zip/file:///custom\_plugin.zip-6.7.2.zip](https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/kibana-plugins/file:///custom_plugin.zip/file:///custom_plugin.zip-6.7.2.zip)
> 
> Plugin installation was unsuccessful due to error "No valid url specified."

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jbudz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jbudz/32/45922_2.png) [@jbudz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jbudz)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-installing-local-plugin/206175/2 "2019-11-01T15:05:04Z")

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Apologies about the docs, I can see how they would be misleading.

There's no need to zip if the files are available, you can throw them in the plugins folder and it'll be picked up automatically. For the plugin installer CLI - you have the right idea, I would use an absolute path to be sure. Its looking for the file in your root directory (eg `/custom_plugin.zip`). So either `file://custom_plugin.zip` or `file:///home/me/kibana/custom_plugin.zip`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-installing-local-plugin/206175/3 "2019-11-29T15:05:17Z")

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