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# Plugin interfaces

This section describes available plugin interfaces.

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### plugin.Exporter

*Exporter* is the simplest interface that performs a poll and returns a value (values), nothing, or error.
It accepts a preparsed item key, parameters, and context.
Access to all other plugin interfaces is exclusive and no method can be called if a plugin is already performing a task.
Also, there is a limit of 100 maximum concurrent *Export()* calls per plugin, which can be reduced according to the requirements for each plugin.

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### plugin.Configurator

*Configurator* interface provides plugin configuration parameters from Zabbix agent 2 configuration files.

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### plugin.Runner

*Runner* interface provides the means for performing initialization when a plugin is started (activated) and deinitialization when a plugin is stopped (deactivated).
For example, a plugin can start/stop some background *goroutine* by implementing the Runner interface.

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### Connection diagram

Zabbix agent 2 connects bidirectionally to the plugins using UNIX sockets on Linux and Named Pipes on Windows. 

The connection diagram below illustrates the communication process between Zabbix agent 2 and a loadable plugin and the metrics collection process.

![](../../assets/en/devel/plugin/connection_diagram.png)

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