Robert Vangel wrote:
Freddy Freeloader wrote:Jonathan Kaye wrote:I beg to differ with you that nothing is written in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox during the install of extensions. I am pasting the output from ls below.-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 En/La Freddy Freeloader ha escrit, a 14/05/05 16:30: | Is anyone else running across the following problem? || Ever since Firefox changed the install routine for themes and extensions| due to a vulnerability I've been unable to install any themes or| extensions as a regular user. I can install them if I su to root and | start Firefox from the bash shell or if I run Firefox as root, but then| any extensions or themes installed don't apply to my regular user | profile. I've tried playine around with copying the entire | .mozilla/firefox directory from /root and changing owner and group| permissions on it so my user account has access but that only creates a| non-usable browser so I have to uninstall and reinstall again.| What happens is that the install routines for extensions/themes begin as| normal but fail silently. I can find no errors in any logs, and the | extensions directory remains empty. I'm assuming this is because| something has changed in the Firefox is using file permissions since the | extensions are installed in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox and a regular user| doesn't have write permissions there.| I went to the Firefox support forums and one of the moderators told me | that this problem would be fixed in the 1.0.4 release so when the 1.0.4 | package was placed in unstable I installed it from there by downloading| the package and using dpkg to install it. (I am running Sarge.) | I'm getting no response worth mentioning from the Firefox people so I | thought I'd ask here if anyone else is seeing this too and what your | workaround was. | Hi Freddy, I'm running Sarge (2.6.8) and Firefox 1.0.4. I have the following extensions: Launchy, DictionarySearch, Linky and Adblock.AFAIK they all are installed in ~/.mozilla/firefox/default.mq3/extensions/I always run Firefox as a normal user and never as root. I never touch /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox and so permission issues don't arise. Cheers, Jonathan -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) iD4DBQFChg+d64+f0AXUe+4RAhR/AJ0UgB3MgDOoXdmhpaQrwnjuZifNSwCYjlMc nRFLyZVwKcuchg0Rs3+KKw== =5aX1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----With each directory & file in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox (including the symlinked ones) chmod'd go-w, how are normal users meant to be able to write to this directory?Job:/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox# ls chrome icons libsoftokn3.so rescomponents libmozjs.so libssl3.so run-mozilla.sh components.ini libnspr4.so libxpcom_compat.so searchplugins defaults libnss3.so libxpcom.so xpcshell defaults.ini libnssckbi.so libxpistub.so xpicleanupextensions libplc4.so mozilla-firefox-xremote-client xpidlfirefox libplds4.so plugins xpt_dump firefox-bin libsmime3.so regchrome xpt_linkgreprefs libsoftokn3.chk regxpcom Job:/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox# cd extensions Job:/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions# ls{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd} installed-extensions-processed.txtExtensions.rdfJob:/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions# cd {972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd} Job:/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions/{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}# lschrome install.rdf uninstallJob:/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions/{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}#As you can plainly see there is data written to /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions when extensions/themes are installed.I have these files as well (the exact same directory names!). Doing a dpkg -S on/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions/\{6c3a4023-ca27-4847-a410-2fe8a2401654\}/install.rdfreturns that it belongs to mozilla-firefox-locale-en-gbI'm guessing that you have had your extensions installed for a long time. I'd lay pretty good odds that you haven't tried installing any new extensions in the past few days either. I'm also guessing, since I have no idea how Firefox is now installing things, that the components for the extensions themselves are now being installed outside the /home directory so that a malicious site won't be able to compromise the computer through a standard user account. Changing the place where the executable files are installed to a directory where a standard user doesn't have write permissions is an easy security fix, but one that has some major consequences.Sorry. Since /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox is NOT writable by normal users, extensions & themes have always been installed in /home. Where else are they meant to go?
After further research into this the extension in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/extensions is the default skin.
So, I'm back to square one. Something changed in how firefox does things somehow though. I even tried copying the entire .mozilla directory from /root to my user /home directory, changing all permissions so the user had normal permissions to it, renaming the existing .mozilla directory so Firefox would use the entire working profile from root with the installed extensions and get nothing but a corrupted browser for my efforts.
I just can't figure this one out. It makes no sense that firefox won't/can't write to the standard user directory but can to the /root directory when both root and users have read, write, and execute permissions to the respective directories. That seems, however, to be the case.
What is also puzzling about this is that an entire working directory acts as if corrupted when moved from /root to a regular user's /home directory. I have tried this with 3 different regular user accounts and they all act the same way. Not a one of them can install themes/extensions or use an entire firefox/mozilla directory that works for root.
Creating new profiles doesn't help either. I've done that several times.