packaging up firefox with add ons

[tlarkin]

So,

I am trying to package up firefox with some add ons, particularly with public fox. Public fox allows me to lock down firefox preferences so I can manage it. The problem is, the extensions by default install into the home directory, and the user will be able to delete them. So, I started copying them to /Library/Application Support/ Mozilla/Extensions hoping I could just configure them and then dump them in there. Composer catches them, and Casper will put those files in those folder but when I push out my test Firefox package, the add ons do not come with it.

Anyone know how to accomplish this?

---

Thomas Larkin
TIS Department
KCKPS USD500
tlarki at kckps.org
blackberry: 913-449-7589
office: 913-627-0351
chown -R us /.base

[#2]

Hi
Can't you change the permissions on the folder under tye user so they can only read and not write?.
This should stop the user from deleting them
Cheers

Carmelo Lopez Portilla

Embl Heidelberg
IT Support

Please consider the enviroment before printing this e-mail.

[tlarkin]

A little head way into this. It seems if I drill into the package contents of FireFox itself, I can actually add in extensions into the app that way. However, they do not hold any settings I put on them. I would like public fox to retain it's settings and password and ad block plus to retain the subscription server I set for it.

I am going to keep working on it.

[winkelhe]

what if you kept them in the original location and used a policy to self heal them? or make the enclosing "Extensions" folder read only?

eric winkelhake
mundocomww
office 312 220 1669
cell 312 504 5155

[tlarkin]

I thought about that, but then I thought of maintaining scripts to set permissions, how am I going to implement updates, will an update kill my script? What restrictions would that put on the user, and so forth. If I could just contain some certain add ons and settings globally with in the package it would make me happy.

I guess I could start to look down the path of self healing user preferences, but was hoping to avoid that.

Thanks

Tom

[winkelhe]

i do recall having to do global installs for firefox addons and if i remember correctly you use Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -some-flag-to-install-globally. now i never had to set global permissions on an addon but maybe that gets you a little closer? and possibly more flags for the firefox binary that might help.

eric winkelhake
mundocomww
office 312 220 1669
cell 312 504 5155

[#7]

Hello,

Use:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -install-global-extension <extension>

To install the plug in globally. Then use Casper to push the updated Firefox application with the plug ins. If you check Mozilla out there should be more on the –install-global-extension option which is quite well hidden.

Philip

[tlarkin]

This looks promising

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments

I could even script it.....Now I know why enterprises don't like deploying firefox.