Setting plugin activation state from addons

[Georg Fritzsche]

Hi,

some plugins are delivered to Firefox via XPIs. If you do that, you can add
per-site or global permissions for your plugin and don’t require any white-
listing.

While we don’t have docs yet on the subject, here is an outline i put on bug
982028:

For adding the permissions (per site, preferred if possible) you would use
nsIPermissionManager.add() for every mimetype [1].
* for the type param use nsIPluginManager.getPermissionStringForType().
* the permission param should be Ci.nsIPermissionManager.ALLOW_ACTION
* expire type Ci.nsIPermissionManager.EXPIRE_NEVER or
Ci.nsIPermissionManager.EXPIRE_TIME

You can see similar usage to that in our click-to-play code and check permissions.sqlite
in your profile folder [2].

Globally activating (avoid if possible to reduce exposure) a plugin would be done via
prefs, you can check about:config and filter for "plugin.state." for comparison.


Georg


[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XPCOM_Interface_Reference/nsIPermissionManager#add%28%29
[2] http://hg.mozilla.org//mozilla-central/annotate/67485526e241/browser/base/content/browser-plugins.js#l729

[Georg Fritzsche]

… and Benjamin brought up the good point that addons should use EXPIRE_SESSION
instead of EXPIRE_NEVER, as otherwise we get stale data when it is disabled or uninstalled.

[Marcin Pijanowski]

OK. Thanks.

Is there any version of mozilla where I can check whether the solution
works?
Is http://www.mozilla.org/aurora/ suitable for testing ?

-----Original Message-----
From: dev-tech-plugins
[mailto:dev-tech-plugins-bounces+marcin.pijanowski=comar...@lists.mozilla.
org] On Behalf Of Georg Fritzsche
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 3:31 PM
To: dev-tech...@lists.mozilla.org
Subject: Re: Setting plugin activation state from addons

. and Benjamin brought up the good point that addons should use

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[David E. Ross]

Do you really mean plugins, or do you mean extensions? I have never
seen a plugin installed from an .xpi file.

--

David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

On occasion, I filter and ignore all newsgroup messages
posted through GoogleGroups via Google's G2/1.0 user agent
because of spam, flames, and trolling from that source.

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 3/11/14 5:51 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> Do you really mean plugins, or do you mean extensions? I have never
> seen a plugin installed from an .xpi file.
>

Yes, plugins. It's a reasonably common way to deploy some kinds of
plugins to Firefox users.

--BDS

[Georg Fritzsche]

On 13 Mar 2014, at 14:37, Marcin Pijanowski <marcin.p...@comarch.pl> wrote:
> Content of signplugin.js.
> pref("dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npsignplugining.dll", false);
>
> and now I want to add pref - plugin.state.<name>
>
> plugin.state. = 0 ‘never active’
> plugin.state. = 1 ‘always active’
> plugin.state. = 2 ‘default state, does nothing’

The value for plugin.state.yourplugin should be:
* 0 for ‘never activate’ (disable)
* 1 for ‘ask to activate’ (click-to-play)
* 2 for ‘always activate’

The upcoming change sets your plugin state to 1, you want to set it to 2.

> in my case I add
> pref("plugin.state.ING BusinessOnLine", 1);

The name is probably different, here is what you can do to see how this works:
Your plugin should get listed in Tools->Addons->Plugins as ‘ask to activate’.
There, set it to e.g. ‘always activate’. Now check about:config by filtering for
“plugin.state.”. There should be an entry for your plugin, probably
“plugin.state.npsignplugining”.

> pref("dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npsignplugining.dll", false);

Please don’t use this pref if at all possible, we really want all plugins to run out-
of-process for stability reasons etc.

> How and where to check whether this solution works correctly?

Verify by installing and checking the plugin activates or looking at the prefs.


Georg

[Georg Fritzsche]

You can verify this like so:
* use a new profile in Aurora or Nightly
* install the old add-on version that doesn’t have the pref
* check that your plugin is click-to-play on sites that use it (without allowing it there)
* install your add-on
* check that your plugin is now always active on the sites


Georg

On 13 Mar 2014, at 15:33, Marcin Pijanowski <marcin.p...@comarch.pl> wrote:

> I changed to 2.
> Now I have only one pref in signplugin.js.
> pref("plugin.state.npsignplugining", 2);
>
> Attachment includes screenshot after installation plugin. In the attachment is also xpi file. Can you install and check it?
> now is it ok, if not please correct?
>
> --
> Marcin

>
> From: Georg Fritzsche [mailto:georg.f...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 2:56 PM
> To: Marcin Pijanowski
> Cc: dev-tech...@lists.mozilla.org
> Subject: Re: Setting plugin activation state from addons
>

> <activePlugin.zip>

[Georg Fritzsche]

We decided to automatically activate plugins that are located in extensions.
This change (bug 982101) will land together with making most plugins click-to-play
by default and the whitelist (bug 992995).
That means that plugins bundled in extensions are not affected by the changes.

Note: This is currently targeted for Firefox 30.

Georg

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=982101
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=992995