1203483 - Ability to inspect permissions API calls and their payload

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(DevTools Graveyard :: WebIDE, defect)

Description

[Victor Porof [:vporof][:vp]]

In WebIDE, the permissions table shows what permissions are requested and/or in use by a Firefox OS app. This is a very high level overview which does not provide any additional details about what's actually happening sometimes, like what's sent over an SMS in the background or when is audio-capture turned on, what's accessed in storage etc.

A user might wish to inspect these API calls and their payloads without diving into the debugger and breaking in unknown code, or diving into the network monitor to inspect all the potentially high-noise http(s) requests.

Christiane came up with the idea of having a dedicated tool for this, or inspecting this information directly in the app permissions page in WebIDE (or whatever incarnation it's going to be next).

The above idea is for a single "inspection" session. Another interesting approach would be to allow all of this to be continually monitored, and reviewed at a later date.

Comment 1

[Frederik Braun [:freddy]]

Having a backlog and trail of permissions and how they were used would be a great addition to the settings app _on the phone_. It would enable people to see which app currently did what. Maybe even allowing the user to sort not only by app but also by permission.

Comment 2

[Christiane Ruetten [INACTIVE]]

I don't think it has to be a separate tool. I'd be psyched if there's an easy way to integrate this with the existing WebIDE framework around such analysis before we have to think about fancier things like settings integration etc.

Comment 3

[Frederik Braun [:freddy]]

If a WebAPI requires a permission it is most likely (though not always) using WebIDL bindings with an attribute like CheckAnyPermissions, CheckAllPermissions, Func, … 

I wonder if we cloud "hook" into the webidl bindings implementation of those and cause a log to the developer console (source file, line and name of API).

Comment 4

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

WebIDE is slated for removal (bug 1314811), so there are no plans to add to the current set of features.