Enterprise-wide deployment of Firefox
Hello,
We are looking at deploying Firefox 3.6.3 across a couple different enclaves in our environment. The thing is we would like to set the default settings for somethings and out of those lock some them down. I have done research on this and the initial research pointed me to installing firefox them modifying prefs.js and creating a cfg to lock things down. Further research pointed out the fact that the firefox executable can be extracted with Winzip to provide the actual source installation files. Now on to the questions:
1) With the source files could I now directly modify the appropriate java script files. Example firefox.js, security-prefs.js, etc.? 2) If in fact I can do this what is the difference between the localized and non-localized folders? 3) If I can directly modify these scripts can i in addition to setting them lock down directly in the same script line or is the cfg file still required. 4) My understanding the need for rot-13 is gone, is this true and if so what can the file be encoded as? 5) How would this affect future updates? Would I have to re-extract and then either copy the custom js over, remodify them by hand or would the settings keep? 6) Will it actually update or will I have to remove the old version first then install the new version?
For questions on how I would deploy once the files were modified the plan would be to use 7Zip again to create a self installing container.
Any help would be appreciated any further questions for clarity are welcome and anything I failed to address.
This happened
Every time Firefox opened
This something we are loooking at for the future
User Agent
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; MS-RTC LM 8; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Alla svar (4)
Hi Ric,
first of all, let me say I'm no expert in taking the files apart and haven't tried large scale deployment myself, but the following answers and suggestions are my best guesses.
I think your best first approach would be looking into 2 of the other Mozilla projects; the CCK Wizard extension (AMO add-on link) and the BYOB - Build Your Own Browser - project (byob mozilla project page). I'm not sure they cover everything you need, but its a starting point, and especially the CCK allows for rather extensive customization of Firefox for deployment.
As for your questions, those I can answer:
1) Yes. 2) The 'localized' folder only contains localized files (that is, all strings used in Firefox) and settings related to this (mainly a file setting the language in the browser to the included language, language-string for UA, default bookmarks and dictionary for the language version, and a localized uninstaller exe file). No matter which localized version you want to deploy, you will most likely only ever need to customize the localized\defaults\profile\bookmarks.html file - and this is also something the CCK Wizard handles, so you don't need to edit the file manually if you choose to use the CCK. 3) Not sure, but I think the cfg is still needed - you might want to take a look in some of the 'kiosk' type extensions on AMO, as they generally excel in locking of options and features. 4) No idea, sorry... 5) I'm not 100% certain of this, but the 3 files you mention - firefox.js, prefs.js and security-prefs.js - should not be affected by an update, unless the update absolutely needs to change anything in these files, and then only on a per-line basis. I'm absolutely certain of this for prefs.js (this isn't really filled in until first start of Firefox), the firefox.js is the default settings, and security-prefs.js are the default security settings. 6) It will update as far as I know, unless the branding of the browser has been changed. But were I you, I'd get FF 3.6.2, apply my changes to it, then let it update and see what happens.
Please let me know how above works out, and if I can be of further assistance. Detailed feedback is appreciated and helps us to help you better, plus enables us to better help other users with similar issues.
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences
If you want to lock prefs with a mozilla.cfg file then you can protect that file with a rot-13 byte shift. You should also make sure that the users do not have write access to the Firefox program folder. Don't modify files from the Firefox installation or you won't be able to update Firefox or have to redo all the steps with every update. That is why the mozilla.cfg file and an additional file like local-settings.js in the greprefs folder is needed.
Online ROT-13 byte shifter: http://www.alain.knaff.lu/~aknaff/howto/MozillaCustomization/cgi/byteshf.cgi
Online ROT-13 byte shifter: http://www.alain.knaff.lu/~aknaff/howto/MozillaCustomization/cgi/byteshf.cgi - DOWN - not working
You can try this method via the Tools > Error Console