Locking Firefox 3 preferences in Ubuntu

Based on http://kirksblog.steffensenfamily.com/archives/24

1. Create a file called loadcustom.js in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.x/defaults/preferences/, where 3.0.x will be something like 3.0.11 or 3.0.14 depending on your current version.

Put the following in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.x/defaults/preferences/loadcustom.js

// tell firefox to load customized config file
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
pref("general.config.filename", "firefox.cfg");

2. Create a file called firefox.cfg in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.x/ with the following content (the first line in both files must start with a comment):

// Lock specific preferences in Firefox so that users cannot edit them
lockPref("app.update.enabled", false);
lockPref("network.proxy.http", "127.0.0.1");
lockPref("network.proxy.http_port", 8080);
lockPref("network.proxy.type", 1);
lockPref("network.proxy.no_proxies_on", "localhost, 127.0.0.1, 192.168.1.0/24");
lockPref("network.proxy.share_proxy_settings", true);
lockPref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.desiredhomepage.com/");

3. Restart Firefox, and the preferences should be locked down. You should be able to use this to lock down any setting in about:config

32-bit firefox on 64-bit ubuntu hardy

Problem: External applet which requires Java 1.5 on 64-bit system.. no firefox plugin for Java 1.5 in 64-bit exists to date (Oct. 6, 2009 - and not likely to happen!)

Solution: Run 32-bit firefox in chroot environment

Following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebootstrapChroot

sudo apt-get install debootstrap schroot

Edit /etc/schroot/schroot.conf and add the following:

[hardy_i386]

description=Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy for i386

location=/srv/chroot/hardy_i386

personality=linux32

root-users=bob

run-setup-scripts=true

run-exec-scripts=true

type=directory

users=alice,bob,charlie

$ sudo mkdir -p /srv/chroot/hardy_i386

$ sudo debootstrap --variant=buildd --arch i386 hardy /srv/chroot/hardy_i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/

Will take a while.. downloads base packages

$ schroot -c hardy_i386 -u root

apt-get install ubuntu-minimal

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add "universe multiverse" to end of the line

apt-get update

apt-get install firefox sun-java5-plugin

In order to get NIS working, I had to install nis package and edit /etc/nsswitch.conf accordingly.

IF you don't want your "real" /home mounted in chroot environment, then edit /etc/schroot/setup.d/10mount and comment out (#) line with /home.

You'll have to create /home/username (mkdir /home/username; chown username /home/username)

Now exit.. and start again as user:

$ schroot -c hardy_i386

firefox -no-remote

NOTE: -no-remote is need in case 64-bit firefox is running already

Goto "about:plugins" to see if Java plugin is available.