1207607 - Signature required for experiments.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Roberto Agostino Vitillo (:rvitillo)]

I tried to test a simple experiment in the current Nightly and I got the following error in the console:

"addons.xpi	WARN	Download of http://localhost:8000/foobar/experiment.xpi failed: signature is required but missing"

The very same experiment works in the current release though. Is this expected? Georg mentioned that signing should be off for experiments.

Comment 1

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

My impression from bug 1191421 (and some other discussion i can't find now) was that we don't require signing for experiments for now until there was a clear light-weight process for experiment signing?

Per this we apparently do require experiments to be signed now:
https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f1dffc8682fbba463cb4bb305f293ddcccbc20b4/toolkit/mozapps/extensions/internal/XPIProvider.jsm#224

Is that correct, did i misunderstand things here?
What is the expected light-weight process for testing/developing experiments then (keeping in mind channel-specific conditions etc.)?

Comment 2

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

Extension signing enforcement has been pushed to Firefox 43, so it will not affect release channel clients until that time. There is a concern around experiments where a third-party installer could modify the manifest and install location to get around enforcement, and would be reasonably simple for existing drive-by installers to implement. The Add-ons team is working on a simple signing protocol for experiments, where an experiment add-on would be submitted and signed via an API, and has been flagged as a priority, and should be available in advance of 43, but signing can also be performed on-demand/request with the AMO review crew, if that's needed. End-state will be a simple submission and signing process, but there may be an overlap of manual submission of final experiment packages in the interim (development can and should be performed with xpinstall.signatures.required set to false.

Comment 3

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

In the mean-time i think that breaks deployment via the current experiments server setup.
Benjamin, are you aware of this?

Comment 4

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

Where can we find the unbranded builds for 43+ with signing disabled for testing experiments locally?

Comment 5

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche] from comment #4)
> Where can we find the unbranded builds for 43+ with signing disabled for
> testing experiments locally?

There are none. Signing can be disabled by setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false in all current builds.

Comment 6

[Benjamin Smedberg]

I'm aware that signing is required.