1659719 - Add policy support for arbitrary preferences (based on prefixes)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Enterprise Policies, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

After discussion, we're going to add support for arbitrary preferences in policy and control them by having prefixes that aren't allowed and certain preferences that are blocked.

Comment 1

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: Bug 1659719 - Add support for arbitrary preferences in policy. r?Gijs!

Comment 2

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/c7341a5c7b6c
Add support for arbitrary preferences in policy. r=Gijs,dveditz

Comment 3

[Cristina Coroiu [:ccoroiu]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c7341a5c7b6c

Comment 4

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Comment on attachment 9170672 [details]
Bug 1659719 - Add support for arbitrary preferences in policy. r?Gijs!

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: New policy not available.
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: Yes
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: No
• Needs manual test from QE?: No
• If yes, steps to reproduce:
• List of other uplifts needed: None
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): Policy only, automated tests.
• String changes made/needed:

ESR Uplift Approval Request

• If this is not a sec:{high,crit} bug, please state case for ESR consideration: Implements new policy
• User impact if declined: New policy not available.
• Fix Landed on Version: 82
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): Policy only, automated tests.
• String or UUID changes made by this patch:

Comment 5

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

This seems like a pretty big change, why do we think extra QA isn't needed here?

Comment 6

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Well it didn't feel like a big change :). But yeah, asking for QA is fine. I never know what the "Needs manual test" is really for.

Which qa-triaged flag do I set?

To test, add the following to a policies.json file:

{
    "policies": {
      "Preferences": {
        "name_of_preference: {
          "Value": true,
          "Status": "default"
        }
      }
    }
}

Any preference that starts with these prefixes:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/d54712b9644b49cec6cc90a9e0c325fdfab04e7c/browser/components/enterprisepolicies/Policies.jsm#1466
or is in this list:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/d54712b9644b49cec6cc90a9e0c325fdfab04e7c/browser/components/enterprisepolicies/Policies.jsm#1481

will work.

Available Status are:

default, user, locked and clear

user preferences will persist across restart.
clear will only clear user preference.

The automated test is here:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/enterprisepolicies/tests/xpcshell/test_preferences.js

Comment 7

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 9170672 [details]
Bug 1659719 - Add support for arbitrary preferences in policy. r?Gijs!

Approved for 81.0b4. Let's get QA to take a look before we uplift to ESR78, though.

Comment 8

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/e2f0a8598813

Comment 9

[Virginia (please send need info request to Brindusa Tot)]

Hi Mike,

Can you please share the steps to reproduce we can follow in order to verify this on QA?

Do we have to create a policies.json file? Where do we save it?
Once it's saved, what are the next steps to verify this change is working?

Thanks in advance,
Virginia

Comment 10

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Comment 6 has the information you need, but I'll provide more detail - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1659719#c6

Create a file called policies.json. On Windows, create a directory called distribution where the EXE is located and place the file there. On Mac, the file goes into Firefox.app/Contents/Resources/distribution

In that file, you should put:

 {
 	"policies": {
 		"Preferences": {
 			"browser.policies.test.default.boolean": {
 				"Value": true,
 				"Status": "default"
 			}
 		}
 	}
 }

The value of "Value" depends on the pref.
The value of "Status" can either be default (set a default value), locked (lock a pref), user (set the user value of a pref), clear (clear an existrnig pref)

For the preference name, you can use existing preferences you see in about:config or create a new one.

You are verifying that the preference is set as default, locked or user set.

Comment 11

[Virginia (please send need info request to Brindusa Tot)]

Hi all,

Thanks for the clarification to reproduce this.

I've used the following preference as a test on version 81.0b7 (64-bit) on Windows 10, and I verify that when changing status, the changes are reflected.

Status tested: default, locked, user and clear

{
"policies": {
"Preferences": {
"browser.policies.test.default.boolean": {
"Value": true,
"Status": "locked"
}
}
}
}

Just to verify, I also tested this on a previous version, 79.0 and I confirm that changes to the json file are not reflecting. The changes do reflect on version 81.0b7 (64-bit)

Regards,
Virginia

Comment 12

[Virginia (please send need info request to Brindusa Tot)]

Adding that this has also been verified in 82.0a1 (2020-09-08) (64-bit).

Regards,
Virginia

Comment 13

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 9170672 [details]
Bug 1659719 - Add support for arbitrary preferences in policy. r?Gijs!

Thanks for the verification. Approved for 78.3esr.

Comment 14

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-esr78/rev/c7680631850f