Embodiments described herein relate to extending the functionality of one or more access management servers, using plug-in files which may be uploaded while the servers are running. The plug-in files may be discovered in both the plug-in file's own class path and the server's class path, and then may be used in the server's authentication and other operations. In certain embodiments, the server's class path need not be modified during this process, and the server need not be shut down or restarted. Certain embodiments may implement a parallel class loader. Custom plug-in file code may be loaded by the parallel class loader, and the parallel class loader is started a container class loader may be made the parent of the parallel class loader.