1119894 - Add "start-debugger-server" CLI option to Firefox

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(DevTools :: Framework, defect)

Description

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Bug 942756 almost landed, which would have added "start-debugger-server" support to all Gecko apps.

Instead of trying to revive that massive patch, let's do the simple thing to just add this option (which b2g already supports) to Firefox as well.

Comment 1

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Attachment: MozReview Request: bz://1119894/jryans

Comment 2

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

/r/2305 - Bug 1119894 - Add start-debugger-server to Firefox. r=past

Pull down this commit:

hg pull review -r ab322343c132f91ec180593ac0f38185c9dbd26b

Comment 3

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Try: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=c21d35087508

Comment 4

[Panos Astithas (he/him) [:past] (please ni?)]

Haven't looked at this in detail yet, but it doesn't seem to support toggling the server via the "enable remote debugging" checkbox, like the original patch did. Is this intentional? Are the use cases we care about not terribly interested in that amount of control?

Comment 5

[Panos Astithas (he/him) [:past] (please ni?)]

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/2305/#review1535

Looks good to me otherwise.

::: browser/devtools/devtools-clhandler.js
(Diff revision 1)
> +             "Start the debugger server on a TCP port or Unix socket path.\n",

"Unix domain socket" would be more accurate. I was also thinking that it would be more user-friendly to default to port 6000 when the user doesn't specify a port or path, but I'm not sure that nsICommandLine can easily do that. Bonus points if you know how to do it though!

Comment 6

[Panos Astithas (he/him) [:past] (please ni?)]

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/2303/#review1537

Ship It!

Comment 7

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

(In reply to Panos Astithas [:past] from comment #4)
> Haven't looked at this in detail yet, but it doesn't seem to support
> toggling the server via the "enable remote debugging" checkbox, like the
> original patch did. Is this intentional? Are the use cases we care about not
> terribly interested in that amount of control?

You are right, it does not.  We can add that separately later on if we wish.

I was hoping to address two use cases:

1. node-firefox wants an easy way to get Firefox listening on a port[1]
2. A user tweeted[2] about this and clarified over email that they would like a CLI option for this

An important note is that this doesn't help if Firefox is already running, at least not on Mac where remoting doesn't really work, so we'd need something else still for that case.

[1]: https://github.com/mozilla/node-firefox/issues/4
[2]: https://twitter.com/icoderforfun/status/552733995818319872

Comment 8

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/2305/#review1549

> "Unix domain socket" would be more accurate. I was also thinking that it would be more user-friendly to default to port 6000 when the user doesn't specify a port or path, but I'm not sure that nsICommandLine can easily do that. Bonus points if you know how to do it though!

I've corrected the help text.

Actually, it is possible to default the port with a sprinkling of try/catch.  Updated to do this and mention it in help text.

Comment 9

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/7536897c179d

Comment 10

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/7536897c179d

Comment 11

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

I think the main use case for this is connecting the developer tools to a different instance of Desktop Firefox, is that right? So I've documented this in the "remote debugging/Connecting Desktop Firefox" page: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Remote_Debugging/Debugging_Firefox_Desktop. I've also made some fairly major updates to that page, would appreciate a review.

I also added it to this page: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options, which could use some other updates to be honest, but I don't have the strength for that now.

Comment 12

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

(In reply to Will Bamberg [:wbamberg] from comment #11)
> I think the main use case for this is connecting the developer tools to a
> different instance of Desktop Firefox, is that right?

Right, that's correct!  Incidentally, b2g desktop also supports the same option, but I am not sure if that's really worth mentioning anywhere...

> So I've documented
> this in the "remote debugging/Connecting Desktop Firefox" page:
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Remote_Debugging/
> Debugging_Firefox_Desktop. I've also made some fairly major updates to that
> page, would appreciate a review.
> 
> I also added it to this page:
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options, which
> could use some other updates to be honest, but I don't have the strength for
> that now.

Great, these docs look good to me!

Comment 14

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1119894 - Add start-debugger-server to Firefox. r=past