1403088 - Using about:remotesettings in Firefox 57.0+

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(WebExtensions :: Compatibility, enhancement)

Description

[Rémy Hubscher (:natim)]

The about:remotesettings add-on is an internal add-on for QA and devs to validate that the blocklist is correctly loaded into Firefox and that the content-signature is valid.

With the growth of collections that sync information into Firefox using Kinto (Bug 1336208, Bug 1403077) the need to expand this add-on seems really important.

In the meantime it seems today impossible to load that add-on in Nightly because this kind of add-on are now obsoletes (even with about:debugging)

Is it possible to turn this add-on into a webextension while keeping the feature of importing and triggering classes from inside Firefox codebase?

If not is it possible to access a way for people to install this add-on as a (privileged add-on maybe?) and how should we proceed?

Comment 1

[Luca Greco [:rpl] [:luca] [:lgreco]]

Hi :natim,

Loading a legacy addon in Nightly is still possible, but you need to set to true the "extensions.legacy.enabled" in the "about:config" preference first (and be sure that the addon's "install.rdf" is recognized as multiprocess compatible, basically "<em:multiprocessCompatible>true</em:multiprocessCompatible>" should be in the "install.rdf").

I took a brief look at the addon sources (https://github.com/leplatrem/aboutremotesettings) and it seems to me that it cannot be currently turned into a webextension (not yet at least):

besides the part that register an "about:" page, it seems to me that the core of the extension defined in https://github.com/leplatrem/aboutremotesettings/blob/master/data/script.js needs direct access to arbitrary "about:config" preferences and to a number of JSM.

Given that this is an internal mozilla addon, it looks that it is the kind of addon for which you can request the internal signing (e.g. like the devtools addon).

At the following link there are some additional informations about the internal signing, the requirements to be allowed to sign the extension with the internal signing and how to request it:

- https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/InternalSigning

Comment 2

[Rémy Hubscher (:natim)]

I guess with these info I know what to do. Thanks Luca.