651882 - Network bind address/interface really should be configurable instead of 0.0.0.0.

Status: NEW

(Core :: Networking, defect, P5)

Description

[Noora]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

Most people don't have a problem with their applications defaulting to the 0.0.0.0 bind address for their network connections. However, those with more than one network interface, such as myself, would really appreciate the config option to manually set the bind address in Mozilla products.

This global bind address should also be respected by all the networking parts of these products, including javascript sockets and extensions/addons where possible.

Case in point: I have a VPN interface next to my real one, that gets activated when I open the VPN connection. Whenever this interface is enabled, firefox will use it (excluding existing pages in some cases?); however, I don't want to use the VPN for my web browsing at all, in most cases. So I need to keep switching the whole VPN connection on and off between opening web pages and doing work through the VPN.

Other users who should appreciate this configuration option would be those with both lan & wireless connections, power users with more than one network card/isp, etc.

I find it really weird that something this trivial and obvious still doesn't exist in Mozilla products after all these years..

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have more than one network interface, but want to use a specific one for web browsing (firefox) / email (thunderbird.)
2. Have firefox/thunderbird use the wrong interfaces at random anyway.



I only use firefox & thunderbird on the Windows platform, but I'm fairly sure that if this problem exists on Windows, it exists on the other platforms as well.

Comment 1

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

Your VPN connection gives you two default routes, one for each interface?

Comment 2

[Noora]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Your VPN connection gives you two default routes, one for each interface?

Yes, both my regular connection and the VPN connection access the internet.
This problem doesn't exist when the difference is between using one for the internet and one for LAN, for example, but that's not the case here.

This is a rather simple case of calling bind() before connecting a socket.

Comment 5

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Bulk change to priority: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1399258