1461330 - Add support also in Thunderbird to the new policy engine

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: OS Integration, enhancement)

Description

[Marco Gaiarin]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0
Build ID: 20180509235650




Expected results:

Firefox now use a new policy engine, see https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates

I hope will be implemented into TB too...

Thanks.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Hopefully Felipe, who did the primary work on the Firefox GPO implementation, will comment here.

I posed the following questions:
- can this happen in Thunderbird without needing changes to gecko core?  (or is there even anything in core?)
- without strings?  (because I'm hoping this is feasible to provide in version 60 ESR)
- how difficult is it likely to be / how much effort?

Comment 2

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Bug 1443829 stalled.

Comment 3

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I don't think this will need changes to Gecko core. The string changes are in ESR 60.

Felipe wrote the code so he'll have to speak to effort.

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

That would be such a boon for Thunderbird. Thunderbird is used a lot in businesses. I'd guess 50% of TB users are business users.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #3)

I don't think this will need changes to Gecko core. The string changes are in ESR 60.

Felipe wrote the code so he'll have to speak to effort.

bug 1443829 comment 20

:Felipe Gomes 7 months ago
not working on this at the moment, so un-assigning in case someone else has interest in taking it.
not sure how useful this is anymore, vs. going all the way to implementing support for Thunderbird

I assume you wanted Felipe to respond about "effort".

And, Magnus, is it decided that bug 1443829 is a non-starter/not needed?

Comment 6

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

I don't think bug 1443829 is needed anymore. We survived for a year without it, so I think that's enough proof. I guess I was thinking of a solution too complicated at the beginning, but I believe we should take a much simpler approach.

I think the gist is that reusing policies from Firefox to Thunderbird, with very few exceptions, will be of almost no use.. So what really just need to be done is to package the policies-schema.json file and Policies.jsm file in a place that can be overridden with different files for Thunderbird. I guess they are already like that, since they are in resource:///modules/policies/

Then Thunderbird can just freely implement the policies that they want. The rare policy that could be shared can just be duplicated.

So we can just move the component itself from browser to toolkit, taking care to move the appropriate tests over while leaving the policies-specific tests in browser.

Comment 7

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Bug 1482809 should give us a start, and is indeed needed so we can at least have basic policies for updates (now that opting out of automatic updates is not a pref anymore) so that organizations can update when when their admin wants to. Other policies would follow.

Comment 8

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

Attachment: 1461330-polcies-base-1.diff

This is the patch to land, and I'm setting r? on it, but I'll post another patch which will be the one to read for reviewing.

Comment 9

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

Attachment: Diff between browser/components/enterprisepolicies and comm/mail/components/enterprisepolicies

This is the difference between the Firefox policies directory and ours.

Comment 10

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

What I've just posted is a straight copy of the Firefox policies directory, with the changes needed to make things work in Thunderbird, and only the policies that have a working test without modifications. There are many other policies we could take now, but their tests need modifications to work in Thunderbird. We can do this at a later point.

Comment 11

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 9063112 [details] [diff] [review]
1461330-polcies-base-1.diff

Review of attachment 9063112 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

LGTM, r=Mkmelin

::: mail/locales/en-US/messenger/policies/policies-descriptions.ftl
@@ +2,5 @@
> +# License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
> +# file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.
> +
> +## The Enterprise Policies feature is aimed at system administrators
> +## who want to deploy these settings across several Firefox installations

Thunderbird

Comment 12

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

Attachment: 1461330-polcies-base-2.diff

Given that we want to add many of the other policies, I think I should put the strings in the tree now so they can be translated. If we don't end up using them that's not a big loss.

In this version of the patch I've copied the entire policies-descriptions.ftl file from Firefox and removed only the policies we're definitely not going to implement (DisablePocket, for example).

Comment 13

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 9063943 [details] [diff] [review]
1461330-polcies-base-2.diff

Review of attachment 9063943 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: mail/locales/en-US/messenger/policies/policies-descriptions.ftl
@@ +30,5 @@
> +policy-Cookies = Allow or deny websites to set cookies.
> +
> +policy-DefaultDownloadDirectory = Set the default download directory.
> +
> +policy-DisableAppUpdate = Prevent Thunderbird from updating.

Prevent { -brand-short-name } from updating.

@@ +47,5 @@
> +
> +policy-DisableSecurityBypass = Prevent the user from bypassing certain security warnings.
> +
> +policy-DisableSystemAddonUpdate = Prevent Thunderbird from installing and updating system add-ons.
> +

{ -brand-short-name }

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/973cbf59e0bc
Add enterprise policy support to Thunderbird with a limited set of policies; r=mkmelin

Comment 15

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

yay :-)
Thanks, guys!

Comment 16

[Matt]

Looking over this stuff, how does one access about:policies in Thunderbird. It looks quite helpful in Firefox, but I can not figure out how to get there in Thunderbird.

Comment 17

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

I'm at work and can't access any TB now. Not sure if about:policies works in TB. To try you could set the start page to about:policies and then open it through the Go menu.

Comment 18

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

And the author of https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/enterprise-policy-generator/ announced that he will support TB with one of the next versions.

Comment 19

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

You can run openContentTab("about:policies", "tab"); from the error console. You get a new tab, but the output isn't useful. You also see: The Enterprise Policies service is inactive. - Huh?

Comment 20

[Matt]

I have filed Bug 1591390 to create a user interface. I am assuming the service is not active as I have no policy file. But the documentation link in about:policies lists the policies that can be configured and their settings. I would see that as very useful information. Even if the browser. setting are mostly useless in Thunderbird.

For instance preferences offers
{
"network.IDN_show_punycode": {
"type": "boolean"
},
"browser.fixup.dns_first_for_single_words": {
"type": "boolean"
},
"browser.cache.disk.parent_directory": {
"type": "string"
},
"browser.urlbar.suggest.openpage": {
"type": "boolean"
},
"browser.urlbar.suggest.history": {
"type": "boolean"
},
"browser.urlbar.suggest.bookmark": {
"type": "boolean"
}
}