Re: Install firefox extensions globally
On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 18:56:08 +0200, T wrote:
> Thanks for reply. several questions:
>
> On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:21:03 +0200, Florian Kulzer wrote:
>
> >> Has anyone successfully installed firefox extensions globally? I don't
> >> ...
> >>
> >> FYI, for a list of problems trying to do so, please refer to:
> >>
> >> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2398824#2398824
> >
> > The global install option of firefox fails on Linux because Linux will not
> > let normal users install stuff in system directories. (/usr/lib/firefox/
> > in this case) This is not a bug, it is a security feature. You can of
> > course make this directory writeable for the normal users (assuming you
> > have root on the machine) but I don't think that this is a good thing to
> > do.
>
> Why /usr/lib/firefox/, but not /usr/lib/firefox/extensions/?
What I meant was /usr/lib/firefox/ and (some) subdirectories. This of
course includes the extensions directory, but I think they sometimes
also write to other directories, e.g. chrome.
> > The page you refer to has people trying to install extensions by running
> > the firefox extension installer as root. It goes without saying that
> > this is a really dumb idea. The code of some random, unknown, untrusted
> > extension author gets root privileges on their boxes. If you do things
> > like that you might as well stay with Windows.
>
> If even root fail to install, would normal user can (with the
> <whatever> directory made writeable)?
I have had cases where I had to install the extension as my normal user,
but with additional write access to the system directory. The extension
installer needed to put files both into my user's directory and into the
system directory, otherwise my normal user would not be able to use the
extension. (And global install did not work at all.) However, I don't
recall anymore if this happened only with mozilla or also after I
switched to firefox. In any case, there should always be an install.log
which tells you what went wrong and which files could not be written.
To come back to your original problem: I think the main issue is that
most extension authors are on Windows and hence do not realize that
their installer might not work fully under Linux. There is a fundamental
difference in the emphasis on security between the two operating systems
and I believe that this breaks the "global installation" mode of many
extension installers. After all, the structure of the user's
mozilla/firefox directory is largely identical on Linux and Windows,
while the organization of the system folders is different.
Maybe you can collect all your favorite extensions in one directory and
write a short script that installs them (semi-)automatically for each
new user that you create. Furthermore, some extensions have been
packaged for Debian, so maybe at least those will have a working
"global" mode. ("apt-cache search firefox extension")
--
Regards,
Florian
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