264433 - If Firefox is installed as root, can't install extensions as normal user

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

This is a nasty problem since I thought one of the points of Firefox's XPI
handling was to always install in the user's profile dir, not change the install
dir, which should avoid this.

A colleague here was bitten by this, and was kind enough to sit down and debug
it with strace. At least the following accesses were problematic:

[pid 26124] open("/opt/firefox/chrome/chrome.rdf",
 O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC|O_EXCL|O_LARGEFILE, 0666) = -1 EACCES
 (Permission denied)
[pid 26124] open("/opt/firefox/chrome/chrome.rdf",
 O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC|O_LARGEFILE, 0664) = -1 EACCES
 (Permission denied)

There may be more because, as a workaround, I suggested a chown or chmod on the
chrome dir. Unfortunately, that had to be done on the entire Firefox install dir
in order for the install to work.

Comment 1

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

Sorry, left this out

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1

Maybe it was recently fixed :-)

Comment 2

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Just to be sure: you did intend to file this for Linux running on Mac? And every
single extension (not software updates, but every extension on
update.mozilla.org/extensions/, with no funkiness like force-intalling an old
pre-0.9 extension (which might have tried to install in the app dir, while ones
that 0.10 will allow to install normally shouldn't even have a choice)?

Comment 3

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

> Just to be sure: you did intend to file this for Linux running on Mac?

Like I said, I observed and debugged this on a colleague's machine. I then went
back to my Mac and filed the bug - forgetting to set the hardware field :-)

This was a first time install of a Firefox-only (no install.js present in the
XPI) extension.

Comment 4

[Darin Fisher]

hmm... this works for me.  conrad: could it be that this guy was trying to
install an extension that doesn't have an install.rdf file?  or one that is not
properly constructed?

Comment 5

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

Darin - it has an install.rdf file. It's a new extension that I'm developing, or
I would give a URL to its install page. Anyway, it's packaged according to this
doc:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/extensions/packaging/extensions.html.
I'll attach its install.rdf shortly.

Comment 6

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

Attachment: install.rdf.in

Here is my install.rdf file (sorry, with the name of the company changed to
xxx). %VERSION% is replaced at build time. Also, this extension has no
install.js in it.

Comment 7

[Chris Martin]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041025 Firefox/1.0

Seeing same problem on Windows 2000 with both the current .10 Release and the
nightly with a fresh install of firefox (made sure there was no profile too).

Here's me scenario:
1. Install with runas (administrator) while logged in under the Users group
2. Run firefox with current user
3. Try to install extension (Tried: adblock, tab prefs, google preview, etc). 
Tried by both just clicking on extension in update page and saving and dragging.
4. The extension manager opens, but the extension never shows up. No error mesage.
5. Closed firefox, ran it as same user but with admin privs, was able to install
an extension.
6. Closed FF, ran as normal user, installed another extension and it worked.

Comment 8

[Jørgen Nørgaard]

I just seen something similar on Mac OS X.

That was probably caused by a preserved old profile with weird permission for
extensions, chrome and US. Only other had write permissions for these directories.

Installing as myself would obviously not work ;-)

 

Comment 9

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

I am unable to reproduce using a recent nightly on linux... reporter, can you
still reproduce with a recent nightly build?

Comment 10

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

per comment #9 and no response from the reporter - resolved -> wfm