979101 - Enable remote debugging by default for local builds

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P5)

Description

[:Margaret Leibovic]

I blow away my profile often for local builds, and it's annoying to flip this pref.

Comment 1

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Actually, why don't we even enable this by default on all channels? A user needs to have USB debugging turned on on their phone for this to work, and that's definitely way more of a security risk.  Also, there's even a dialog that appears asking you to approve the connection.

I suppose when you flip the pref we tell you about setting up port forwarding, but you can figure that out if you're trying to get remote debugging working for the first time. Also, if you have multiple instances of Fennec running on your device, all with remote debugging enabled, the wrong one can be connected.

I think we should make an effort to make it as easy as possible for web developers to test/develop in Firefox for Android.

Comment 2

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Attachment: Enable remote debugger by default on nightly builds

Since this is a developer feature, I'm not sure what kind of product approval we need here, but I think this change will make life nicer for developers, and since it only affects Nightly, it feels like it isn't a big deal to change.

Comment 3

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Comment on attachment 8389402 [details] [diff] [review]
Enable remote debugger by default on nightly builds

Since this only affects Nightly, I agree.

Comment 4

[:Margaret Leibovic]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/1acaa42690a6

Comment 5

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Much happiness. Such adb forward. Wow.

Comment 6

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/1acaa42690a6

Comment 7

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Backed out for memory regressions :(

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/6a184aee9ea0

Let's just WONTFIX this. Developers like me are probably few, and we can figure out some local hack to streamline this process (like just changing this in our own mobile.js when building).

I had assumed this was disabled for security reasons, but obviously memory reasons are more of a factor here.

Comment 8

[:Margaret Leibovic]

FYI, it also looks like backing this out fixed a talos regression. So another reason not to do this.

Comment 9

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

(In reply to :Margaret Leibovic from comment #7)
> Backed out for memory regressions :(
> 
> https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/6a184aee9ea0
> 
> Let's just WONTFIX this. Developers like me are probably few, and we can
> figure out some local hack to streamline this process (like just changing
> this in our own mobile.js when building).
> 
> I had assumed this was disabled for security reasons, but obviously memory
> reasons are more of a factor here.

Given this context, perhaps we should enable this by default just for local builds (using MOZILLA_OFFICIAL as our "in-automation" flag) and maybe for Nightly debug builds.  

See, for example, http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/mobile/android/base/AndroidManifest.xml.in#88.

Comment 10

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

As discussed on IRC today, let's make another attempt at this.  We'll restrict it to local builds only as :nalexander suggests in comment 9.

He also suggested we should toast on connection (instead of prompting) for the local build case.

Comment 11

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

Kinda looks like we might want, from b2g/simulator/custom-prefs.js:

1 	user_pref("devtools.debugger.prompt-connection", false);
2 	user_pref("devtools.debugger.forbid-certified-apps", false);
3 	user_pref("devtools.apps.forbidden-permissions", "");
7 	user_pref("devtools.debugger.remote-enabled", true);
8 	user_pref("devtools.chrome.enabled", true);

So, around https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/mobile/android/app/mobile.js#435, we'll want a conditional block to flip some subset of those things above.

Comment 12

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Re-triaging per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1473195

Needinfo :susheel if you think this bug should be re-triaged.

Comment 13

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.