1230802 - Implement "chrome.storage.managed"

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(WebExtensions :: Storage, defect, P5)

Description

[ido.y]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/47.0.2526.73 Safari/537.36

Comment 1

[ido.y]

https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/manifest/storage

the managed storage is allow to externally config extension for massive installation (e.g. by using GPO)
in XUL we had the option to do that by using the "nsIWindowsRegKey"
in webExtension that will be the best alternative for doing the configuration

Comment 2

[:shell escalante]

there's nothing in Fx that enables setting all to same back end configuration - Jeff are there plans?

Comment 3

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

(In reply to :shell escalante from comment #2)
> there's nothing in Fx that enables setting all to same back end
> configuration - Jeff are there plans?

We have some initial discussions about reforming ESR to be more useful to enterprises. I don't think this feature is on the list yet, and I think I would prefer any Firefox work be driven from Web Extensions requirements. The initial ESR work will almost certainly be mainly installer work.

Comment 4

[YUKI "Piro" Hiroshi]

This is quite required for my cases. For my customer companies I provide some addons for their common requirements, and distribute it with an MCD configuration file to change their behaviors for each customer. For example:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/force-addon-status/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/permissions-auto-registerer/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ui-text-overrider/

Comment 5

[ido.y]

is there anything new about this?

Comment 6

[Caitlin Neiman [:caitmuenster]]

To be discussed at Dec. 13, 2016 WE triage meeting. 

Agenda: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S1QrBK1hrulE7dlLiQzjMupHUUSwDYRYAOXiqtMHe-k/edit

Comment 8

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

This would be a blocker for distributions as well. Is there a reason this is still unconfirmed if it has been triaged/approved?

Comment 9

[Andy McKay]

Because we rarely bother flipping the status from unconfirmed, its always seemed like a pointless make work step in Bugzilla to me. I've flipped it to new :)

Comment 11

[u589863]

Mozilla Bug 1215062 decided to disallow to access about:config preferences. So, It is impossible to convert Configuration Mania to a WebExtension. Not only this extensions such as QuickJ , GuI config , TMP
etc cannot be ported as well.

Since these are top extensions and have at some point been featured on mozilla,
Mozilla should probably allow some leeway and implement the necessary apis or face user backlash.

Comment 12

[Austin]

With the conversion of extensions to WebExtensions, we are unable to deploy our settings to various deployed extensions, such as uBlock Origin. If this is not the proper way for an extension to allow settings to be managed by an administrator, then what is?

Comment 13

[YUKI "Piro" Hiroshi]

(In reply to Austin from comment #12)
> With the conversion of extensions to WebExtensions, we are unable to deploy
> our settings to various deployed extensions, such as uBlock Origin. If this
> is not the proper way for an extension to allow settings to be managed by an
> administrator, then what is?

As a workaround for enterprise (business) use, I've developed a native messaging host to read configs from MCD configuration files. Until chrome.storage.managed is landed, we need to do something like this by self.

https://github.com/clear-code/mcd-go (library for Golang)
https://github.com/clear-code/ieview-we (example application)

Comment 14

[Andy McKay]

Please note that bug 1386427 contains a basic implementation of chrome.storage.managed and I've successfully used this to configure extensions. A test of uBlock Origin would be appreciated.

Comment 15

[Mike Conca [:mconca]]

:mkaply - with support for chrome.storage.managed in release 57, and support for Windows GPO in release 60, is this bug still applicable?  Or can it be closed?

Comment 16

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

This bug is still applicable. I think we need to add support to GPO for settings chrome.storage.managed values?

I honestly don't know how the mapping works. I'll see if this is something our intern wants to take on.

Comment 17

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

Right now the managed storage only looks in Native Manifests:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/extensions/parent/ext-storage.js#29

We would need to add code to support a new type of manifest maybe? And then provide policy code to set it.

Comment 18

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

https://superuser.com/questions/1303910/translate-google-chromes-storage-from-policies-managed-json-to-firefox

Comment 19

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

I'm moving this to I plan to start work on this soon.

Comment 20

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

Attachment: Bug 1230802 - Add support for setting chrome.storage.managed via enterprise policy.

Comment 21

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

When this patch lands, this page:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/storage/managed

Needs to be updated.

Comment 22

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/1a0f3a7891f4
Add support for setting chrome.storage.managed via enterprise policy. r=Felipe,zombie,flod

Comment 23

[Stefan Hindli [:stefan_hindli]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/1a0f3a7891f4

Comment 24

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

Attachment: Test files for this bug

Attached are files for testing this bug.

There is a policies.json that sets the value in policy.

There is a simple extension that can be loaded via about:debugging.

After loading, you can debug the extension and view the console and see that the value you set in policy is displayed in the console.

Comment 25

[CosminB]

Attachment: Bug1230802.png

This issue is verified as fixed on Firefox 68.0a1(20190319095054) and Firefox 67.0b3(20190318154932) under Win 7 64-bit and Mac OS X 10.14.1.

Please see the attached screenshot.

Comment 26

[Irene Smith]

This issue is tracked here: mdn/sprints #1430

Comment 27

[Irene Smith]

Is the message here that this is a new way to allow managed installation of web extensions, or should it be discussed as the preferred way because it makes it easier to create cross-browser extensions? Is the existing Firefox managed storage method going away or is it going to remain as an alternative?

These probably seem like stupid questions, but I don't want to give the wrong message.

Comment 28

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

I would call it a new way. The API (chrome.storage.managed) is the same.

We didn't implement it originally via policy because we didn't have policy.

We have no plans to remove the JSON option.

Comment 29

[Richard Bloor]

Confirming the documentation requirements:

• new manifest key page for storage with the property managed_schema in line with https://developer.chrome.com/apps/manifest/storage
• update to storage.managed to note that, on Firefox, the content of managed storage can be defined optionally by the managed_schema to provide compatibility with Chrome. (Firefox will continue to support arbitrary json in manage storage, without a schema).

Comment 30

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

We're actually not using the managed_schema concept at all. For us, it's just a matter of doing the right thing in a policies.json file or GPO.

you can see an example here:

https://github.com/mozilla/legacy-browser-support/blob/master/README.md

Comment 31

[Richard Bloor]

A new page has been added to MDN to describe the storage manifest key, with compatibility data pending in PR 5575. Please let me know if any further changes are needed.

Comment 32

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply] (Out until 9/29)]

This looks good to me.