Replace Firefox standard release with Firefox ESR

[bbarciz]

Hello,

We currently have an environment that has some computers with the standard release of Firefox and some with the ESR release.  I'm looking to standardize this to the ESR version, but am looking for suggestions on how best to achieve this? 

I currently have the latest ESR setup with patch management and most systems have installed that update now.  Would checking the box in patch management for "patch unknown versions" achieve the change?  I have a script in place for the extension attribute for standard vs ESR, but I don't see the ability to make a smart group from that like I originally expected.

Thanks for any ideas you can offer!

[JevermannNG]

I am wondering if anyone has a solution? We ran into the same situation, currently we are using Mozilla Firefox but want to switch to Mozilla Firefox ESR. Can we run both versions on the same Mac and only patch Mozilla Firefox ESR? Thank you, Bjoern

[bbarciz]

Hi!

No easy way that I found for this.  What I did was I created a smart group for Computers with the standard (non-ESR) version and then made an uninstall policy that just did a command line remove of the .app.  Then, I also have a smart group for computers without Firefox installed which those machines will become part of shortly after the uninstall completing.  That group has an ESR version scoped to it.

Hope that helps.  Not exactly clean and easy but better than nothing!

[JevermannNG]

@bbarciz  thank you for the input, but I think that might result into unhappy customers ... what happens if the policy/script tries to remove a Firefox.app while it is in use? Do you use Jamf Helper to inform the user about the action that needs to be done?

[bbarciz]

The target of my change was classroom and lab computers.  I was able to accomplish it between classes so I did not need to worry about that.  Although in some ways, I wonder how much push-back you would get about 1 odd browser crash for those that it did not run perhaps overnight.

[silverwalks]

The answer here is “it’s a job for grep, sed and if/then.”

In the Firefox and Firefox ESR bundles, application.ini has a field which you can use to differentiate between the two. Grep for firefox-esr or firefox; sed to remove the extras; and then make an if/then to either update firefox…. Or “update” Firefox ESR by pulling it and replacing it (if that is what you want.) I will post my solution later tonight.