36007 - Mozilla crashes when trying to install PSM as non-root user.

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 49507

(Core Graveyard :: Security: UI, enhancement, P3)

Description

[David Krause]

Overview Description:
A way to install PSM on a filesystem that doesn't have write permissions as a
normal user is needed.

Steps to Reproduce:
1) As a root (Administrator) user unpack mozilla and make sure it is owned by root
2) Start mozilla as a normal user
3) Try to install PSM

Actual Results:
Mozilla segfaults

Expected Results:
Either give a dialog box that says no permission to install or allow the user to
enter the root password to install it.

Reproducibility:
everytime

Build Date & Platform Bug Found:
2000041617 Linux i686

Additional Builds and Platforms Tested On:
any OS with directory permissions

Additional Information:
Possibly move the default install directory for PSM to the profile directory?

Comment 1

[David Krause]

After talking this over on irc with some friends, I decided that what I was 
asking didn't really make since.

Updating the summary.

PSM needs to give a warning if it doesn't have write permission to the 
mozilla/package directory.  Currently it just crashes with no explanation of 
what was wrong.  I know several people have been bit by this (including me) 
until I realized that I wasn't root.  Something to the effect of "Error:  No 
write permission to the mozilla directory" and then cleanly quit the install 
without crashing.

Comment 2

[leger]

Adding crash keyword

Comment 3

[John Unruh]

Adding nsbeta3 keyword.

Comment 4

[Michael La Guardia]

Marking nsbeta3- for the commercial build.  PSM is always installed with
seamonkey, so this bug is moot for commercial.

Comment 5

[John Unruh]

Not really moot for commercial. If later on the customer updates PSM this bug
will occur.

Comment 6

[John Unruh]

Changing QA contact to nitinp

Comment 7

[Michael Hoennig]

On my system (SuSE Linux 6.4) it hangs when I run it as a user after I installed
it as root. Output is just this:

mi@ynis:/opt/mozilla/package > ./mozilla
./run-mozilla.sh ./mozilla-bin
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=.
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.
     LIBRARY_PATH=.:./components
       SHLIB_PATH=.
          LIBPATH=.
       ADDON_PATH=.
      MOZ_PROGRAM=./mozilla-bin
      MOZ_TOOLKIT=
        moz_debug=0
     moz_debugger=

Comment 8

[Michael Hoennig]

Sorry, missed to read the "PSM" - forget my comment.

Comment 9

[selmer (gone)]

rtm-, comments indicate that the RTM build is not itself broken.  This is a good 
thing to get fixed on the trunk though.

Comment 10

[Stephen Ostermiller]

This bug appears to be outdated at this point.  Now when you try to install psm
as a non-root user, it fails with an error code (tested today with latest
nightly build on linux).  The error code isn't helpful, but mozilla didn't crash.

Comment 11

[John Unruh]

Mass reassigning nitinp's bugs to me.

Comment 12

[Sam Mefford]

Isn't the real problem here with the auto-install mechanism?  Shouldn't that
check permissions and adequately handle non-permissioned attempts to auto-install?

For example: "You must have write access to install directory to use auto-install."

Comment 13

[Tim Taylor]

This bug looks like a dupe of bug 49507.

FYI, see http://tool-man.org/docs/HOWTO/Mozilla-Nightly-Install-HOWTO for a
description of a workaround to this bug and bug 49507.

Comment 14

[John Unruh]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 49507 ***

Comment 15

[John Unruh]

Verified dupe.