345034 - [RFE] Centralized preferences/profile storage/sharing across network

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: Startup & Profiles, enhancement)

Description

[Michael]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050920
Build Identifier: 

not sure if anybody else would actually consider this useful, anyway let me go out on a limb:

where I work, we have various workstations that basically all employees have access to, so depending on where exactly each individual person has to work, they may have to use multiple different machines on a single given day.

However, most users would like to be able to use a personalized version of Mozilla/SeaMonkey adapted to their invidual needs, so that whereever they go, they don't have to reconfigure a profile or add another profile. Likewise, people would obviously like not to have to take care of other people's settings or customizations. 

While some people have attempted to address this need by exposing the Mozilla installation directory via network shares, others favor currently using a customized version of Mozilla installed on a USB memory stick.

Nevertheless, these approaches have obvious shortcomings (i.e. installation sharing will only work properly on the same architectures/platforms, user profiles would be shared among ALL users on the network, thus providing access to arbitrary accounts/profiles to all users-without authentication or encryption, likewise carrying around USB sticks isn't ideal either). So, the idea was:

Since we only use Mozilla/Chrome based browsers exclusively on ALL platforms, we figured it would be neat if there was the possibility to export Mozilla profiles to a central "server"/service (LAN or possibly even internet based), that could be used by Mozilla based browsers, to download complete user profiles, so that any given Mozilla installation could be easily customized for each individual user with a single click.

For example: 

1) Open Mozilla Profile Manager
2) Create new Profile
3) Select profile type (local/remote) 
4) Pick REMOTE Profile
5) Enter URL for remote profile service, including authentication (account/password)
6) have Mozilla log on to the profile service and create the corresponding remote profile
7) start using the profile: copy all session-specific data that would normally end up in a local profile, to the profile server
8) close session (where the preferences, bookmarks & history should reflect all changes)


That way, users would have the possibility to maintain their default profile/preferences via a network service, which then exports everything via network to authenticated clients (Mozialla sessions)-that way, other Mozilla based browsers could connect to a profile-sharing service (i.e. LDAP based in order to TEMPORARILY set up the local Mozilla installation according to the user needs.

Basically, you'll have your own private bookmarks, history, email settings, preferences etc. whereever you go, regardless of the machine you are using. 

What do you guys think?

Reproducible: Always



Expected Results:  
...allow arbitrary Mozilla installation to be customized at session-level based on remotely stored Mozilla profiles that are made accessible via network.

Comment 1

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

You are aware of the "Roaming" function for profiles in SeaMonkey 1.0.x? It might address some of the features you want, you can find it in the Preferences window under Roaming.

Comment 2

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> You are aware of the "Roaming" function for profiles in SeaMonkey 1.0.x? It
> might address some of the features you want, you can find it in the Preferences
> window under Roaming.
> 

Hmm... I don't see any "Roaming" preferences. Have they been removed? If they have, I suppose this bug becomes all the more acute (though it might mean the powers-that-be have implicitly WONTFIXed it).

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Gecko/2008041201 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre

Comment 3

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Not removed, but not replaced yet. I'm not sure how difficult it is to implement this feature in toolkit.

Comment 4

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Isn't this exactly what Sync is supposed to do?

See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/10868/ for the extension. I'm not privy to the gods' secrets but it just "might" become part of SeaMonkey out of the box at some (unspecified) future time.

Comment 5

[Robert Kaiser]

Sync is doing something different, but we actually can call up profiles stored in any addressable directory, even if it's located on a network share. We will not create additional UI to manage that though, so this is WONTFIX. Might be interesting add-on fodder though for creating the UI to manage this.