1429153 - Policy: Disable Telemetry

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Enterprise Policies, defect, P1)

Description

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Policy: Disable telemetry

https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/telemetry/internals/preferences.html

Comment 1

[R P Herrold]

The referenced page has some typographic errors

More importantly, it calls out for reducing some data to tables, and red and green 'hints' to help decode the Boolean 'double negatives' to see what the net effects are

It also has a mish-mash of: is_defined, is _non-null, and is_not_defined possibilities, which prevent being able to choose a desired end state, define several values, and to know that a desired set of lockdown state is achieved.

Surely there must be a policy for naming which is being disregarded, here, and a cleanup is possible under the existing prefs parser

Comment 2

[:shell escalante]

Georg is the subject matter point of contact for telemetry.

Comment 3

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Hi Georg, Chutten,

what do you think is the most recommended way for the policy engine to disable telemetry? I'm looking for the smallest set of changes (by changing and locking prefs) that will achieve the following:

- disable telemetry
- do not display the privacy notice if it has not been displayed yet
- gray out the telemetry checkbox in about:preferences
- (optionally) display the "not supported in this build configuration" message, hopefully with a different string

Comment 4

[Chris H-C :chutten]

For disabling telemetry and greying out the checkbox in about:preferences, set `datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled` to false and lock it[1].

For the background tab showing the Privacy Notice, I don't know that system as well. According to the docs[2], `datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled` is a kill switch. Checking the code, if you set that to false no notification will be shown[3] and no data will uploaded[4].

So: lock healthreport.uploadEnabled to false and set policy.dataSubmissionEnabled to false and you should be covered?

...this is only for Desktop Firefox, right? Fennec's a whole other ball of wax.

[1]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/84cea84b12145d752e50ddca6be5462c38510e35/browser/components/preferences/in-content/privacy.js#1574
[2]: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/telemetry/internals/preferences.html#data-choices-notification
[3]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/84cea84b12145d752e50ddca6be5462c38510e35/toolkit/components/telemetry/TelemetryReportingPolicy.jsm#371
[4]: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/84cea84b12145d752e50ddca6be5462c38510e35/toolkit/components/telemetry/TelemetryReportingPolicy.jsm#343

Comment 5

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

What Chris said.

For showing a message, i think you'll need to update browser/components/preferences/in-content/privacy.{xul,js}.
Currently this is using only build flags.

Comment 6

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

This should be an enterprise only policy.

Comment 7

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: Bug 1429153 - Add policy for disabling telemetry.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/232252/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/232252/

Comment 8

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Comment on attachment 8963349 [details]
Bug 1429153 - Add policy for disabling telemetry.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/232252/#review237752

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/61f766367616
Add policy for disabling telemetry (ESR only). r=Felipe

Comment 10

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: Enterprise policy

Comment 11

[Cristina Coroiu [:ccoroiu]]

Backed out changeset 61f766367616 (bug 1429153) for browser-chrome failures at /browser/browser_policies_sorted_alphabetically.js on a CLOSED TREE 

Failure push: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=autoland&revision=61f7663676161c7fefc50a07f627e17d7fb2ea9d

Failure log: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/logviewer.html#?job_id=171037975&repo=autoland&lineNumber=3545

Backout: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/47d7fce147b3ab4aa971a61b313f9cc926ccda30

Comment 12

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Comment on attachment 8963349 [details]
Bug 1429153 - Add policy for disabling telemetry.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/232252/diff/1-2/

Comment 13

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/006f9ab160b9
Add policy for disabling telemetry. r=Felipe

Comment 14

[Andrei Ciure[:aciure]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/006f9ab160b9

Comment 15

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Comment on attachment 8963349 [details]
Bug 1429153 - Add policy for disabling telemetry.

Approval Request Comment
[Feature/Bug causing the regression]: Enteprise Policies
[User impact if declined]:
[Is this code covered by automated tests?]: Yes
[Has the fix been verified in Nightly?]:
[Needs manual test from QE? If yes, steps to reproduce]: No
[List of other uplifts needed for the feature/fix]: None
[Is the change risky?]: No
[Why is the change risky/not risky?]: Policy Only
[String changes made/needed]: None

Comment 16

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 8963349 [details]
Bug 1429153 - Add policy for disabling telemetry.

More Policy Engine work needed for Fx60. Approved for 60.0b9.

Comment 17

[Abe - QA (:Abe_LV)]

We tested this on latest nightly with JSON format and it is verified as fixed. In this fix, telemetry data upload is disabled.

It will also be tested with adm policy format when available.
Test cases and runs are here: https://testrail.stage.mozaws.net/index.php?/plans/view/8760

Comment 18

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/60416c55a73b

Comment 19

[Abe - QA (:Abe_LV)]

We retested this on beta builds[FX60] with ADM and JSON policy formats and it is verified as fixed.

Test cases and runs are here- https://testrail.stage.mozaws.net/index.php?/plans/view/8760