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Rolling Out Mozilla in an Organization?
Posted by
Cliff
on Sun Jan 19, 2003 06:29 PM
from the bringing-in-the-400-lb-lizard dept.
from the bringing-in-the-400-lb-lizard dept.
jdclucidly asks: "I am a network administrator for a small non-profit (about 50 employees). I would like to roll Mozilla 1.2.1 out to all of our desktops. We don't have a single ghost image because the computers on site are too varied. Yes, I did my Googling. The source for the installer is just huge and mind boggling. Is there something like a Mozilla Administration Kit that will generate custom Mozilla installers? If not, would people on Slashdot be interested in starting a new project to make such a kit?" If you were going to deploy a "branded" version of Mozilla, company-wide, how would you do it, especially if you had to worry about a mixed OS environment?
"Here's what I want to do:
- Install everything but Quality Feedback Agent
- Set Mozilla as the default browser
- Disable 'Open Unrequested Windows' (kill pop-ups)
- Install Elveraldo's Crystal-Classic theme as default
- Set Google as the default search engine
- Set 'Georgia' as the default Serif font for Western and Unicode
- Enable HTTP Pipelining
- Enable FIPS internal cryptography
- Set toolbar to 'Pictures only'
- Set Home Page to my organization's intranet site
- Set start page to 'Blank page'
- Disable 'Hide the tab bar'
- Enable Middle-click for new tab
- Enable control+enter for new tab
- Default downloads to 'open a progress dialog'
- Disable Javascript and Plugins for Mail & News
- Enable quicklaunch
- Create an additional shortcut on the desktop and in quicklaunch that uses chrome/icons/mailnew.ico as it's source and points to 'mozilla.exe -mail'
I installed Mozilla on my machine using the stub installer and had it save all of the .XPI components to a folder. I went in and extracted the .XPI's and examined them. It seems possible to do these things but not without learning XUL, JavaScript, XML and Mozilla.org's own stuffings -- not to mention setting up a Visual C++/Cygwin compiling farm for every next Mozilla release. Can I:
- Directly modify the defaults/prefs/all.js file to incorporate my preference defaults above and then recompress the .XPI?
- Add to the installer Crystal-Classic.jar somehow? Where are those changes made?
- Make the installer NOT allow the user to change any of this?
- Make the installer create the above mentioned shortcut?"
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Rolling Out Mozilla in an Organization?
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just copy the directory (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:just copy the directory (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:just copy the directory (Score:5, Informative)
The way I have Mozilla set on our NT4 machines is to use the profile editor (name?), delete the default, create my own (named modlang, being that I run the modlang computer lab) profile, put it under mozilla.org in the program files directory, set everything to the way I want (popup blocking, default homepage, etc) and then simply copy mozilla.org directory (with mozilla already being installed on the profile creating machine) to each target machine.
The tricky part was figuring out that I needed to copy the registry.dat to default user's application data directory, after figuring that out it is cake.
It needs registry for Quicklaunch and dflt browser (Score:5, Informative)
REGEDIT4
r entVersion\Run]Z ILLA.EXE\" -turbo"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur
"Mozilla Quick Launch"="\"C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILLA.ORG\\MOZILLA\\MO
Other registry entries might be necessary to set Mozilla as the default browser.
Other handy tips for mozilla configuration (such as locked config items, automatically generated personal config, etc) can be found at http://www.alain.knaff.lu/howto/MozillaCustomizati on/ [knaff.lu]
This is used in the schools participating in the LLL [www.lll.lu] project.
Some Highlights:
- Any configuration options accessible in prefs.js can be stored in a locate mozilla.cfg file (optionnally locked in such a way that it can no longer be overridden by the user):
- Disable 'Open Unrequested Windows' (kill pop-ups),
- Enable HTTP Pipelining,
- Set toolbar to 'Pictures only',
- Set Home Page to my organization's intranet site,
- Set start page to 'Blank page',
- Enable Middle-click for new tab,
- Enable control+enter for new tab,
- Default downloads to 'open a progress dialog',
- Disable Javascript and Plugins for Mail & News
- Using mozilla's own registry (%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Mozilla\registry.dat) set the profile directory (which contains prefs.js et al.) to be on the user's home directory (H:\). That way, you can have a personalized configuration (Mail & News) automatically created by a script. When the user first logs in, he doesn't need to set his email address, server name, etc for using Mail & News, everything is already done for him!
- Disabling of the bulky XUL.mfl file (whose sizes quickly add up if you have thousands of users): just create a directory named XUL.mfl, and Mozilla will be unable to create that file, and it will still work correctly!
- Automatical loading of the needed registry entries as soon as user logs in, using a netlogon script
At LLL, we deploy our machines using Udpcast [linux.lu], which might not be appropriate in your case (all your machines are different), but as other posters have pointed out, most of the client-side installation options can also be handled by a Zipfile plus a small install script to put stuff into the correct place.Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO of course.
Re:Priorities (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhh... this is what you DON'T want to do (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uhh... this is what you DON'T want to do (Score:5, Informative)
1. WinInstall handles win9x and winnt/2k/XP clients differently.
2. All the systems you mentioned cost money. A significant amount of money.
3. SMS will only work with Microsoft stuff and it kinda sucks, although I heard the new version is ok. Just expect vendor lock-in.
4. Novell Zenworks will require an NT server or a Novell server, and the version that I used put all the files in NDS. You couldn't edit them or do much with them after you did a scan. WinInstall blew them out of the water.
The core reason you use an unatended install is the EXCACT reason this guy wants one and WinInstall isn't such a good option. He has 50 desktops probably all different. Some have multiple drives some don't. If you made a WinInstall or SMS or ZenWorks package to do this type of install, you better be great a building those packages, because you will be using your "test" machine as a template for all the desktops in the organization. If for some reason that test machine had a DLL that the other 40 didn't have...
typical (Score:4, Insightful)
This is pretty typical: in order to get even the simplest task done on Windows, the usual answer is: get another software package.
the money you spend will save you $$$ in man-hours trying
First, you are going to spend many man hours getting your manager to approve the purchase and order the applications. Then you are going to spend many more man hours installing them. Then you are going to spend many man hours trying to figure them out. Then you are going to spend even more man hours fiddling around with them trying to package up Mozilla. Then, you still need to figure out how to get the packages themselves or the client packages for those packages onto the clients. Then, if everything goes really well, you may be ready to install the software.
And when some major software upgrade comes from Microsoft or these vendors, you can start pretty much from square one.
That's of course assuming that those packages are completely bug free. More than likely, they will interact in some unknown way with some other software package and mess up something or other.
hackneyed, crappy homebrew solution in the long run
Professional chefs use a couple of knives to get the job done: they are reliable, predictable, simple, and efficient. Amateurs run out and buy every kitchen appliance under the sun, hoping to compensate with appliances for skills that they lack. It's no different with system management: if you don't know what you are doing, your answer is going to be: "oh, just buy another piece of software".
Windows, unfortunately, doesn't ship with any knives, but with Cygwin and Perl, you can get by. System management on Windows still like preparing a banquet in a kitchenette, but you don't need to make the effort even harder by stuffing the kitchenette full with useless junk.
Ok, I'll take a shot. (Score:3, Interesting)
Make one install on your PC. Setup all of the preferences how you want them.
Copy the .mozilla directory (or whatever) to wherever you plan on installing this from. chmod a-w on it for *nix users, set permissions accordingly on it for Windows.
Put your .jar theme where it needs to be
Install on everyone else's PCs and just copy the preferences folder via a script or by hand.
Profit!
It such a small number of people, it should be painless to do it by hand anyways.
The easy way... (Score:5, Funny)
It' won't be easy... (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, Mozilla doesn't understand UNC paths. If your GPO redirects %appdata%, you're screwed. Quit now. The mozilla registry.dat file goes in %appdata%\mozilla and if %appdata% is in a UNC of DFS share, it won't find it.
Then ... if you allow users to create profiles in the default location, below %appdata%\mozilla, expect profiles to go missing. Windows has a nasty habit of duplicating roaming profiles, like profiles\user, profiles\user.domain, profiles\user.domain.000, etc... Since your profile location is a hardcoded path in registry.dat, Mozilla will find it, but will try to load the profile in the stale profile location. If that doesn't exist now, it'll throw up a profile manager asking you to recreate one.
The solution to above is to create the profile manually via a command like:
That will move the bulk of the profile (except registry.dat) to a fixed location out of the roaming profile.
For a lot more detail and my rant, read bug #162025, comment #28.
We have done a lot to get it working finally, including some logon vbscripts to create the profiles, repair prefs.js file, have some mandatory prefs.js entries that are replaced during logon if user changes them (like home page for us), etc...
We've been through hell but think we finally have it licked by working around mozilla bugs. We intend to post a page on our experiences, but not in the next 12 hours (the effective life of a slashdot story)
When it's ready, I'll e-mail you or feel free to contact me if you want the scripts as they stand now (we are still debugging some things).
Re:It' won't be easy... (Score:5, Informative)
We have seen this behaviour too. However, apparently, as far as we could see, it would only happen on Win2k, on NTFS partitions. Win2k + FAT32 was ok. So, what we did was create a small D: partition as FAT32, and configured Windows to store the cached user profile on that partition. From then on, our "multiple profiles" problem was gone.
Since your profile location is a hardcoded path in registry.dat, Mozilla will find it, but will try to load the profile in the stale profile location. If that doesn't exist now, it'll throw up a profile manager asking you to recreate one.
Or just store the profile somewhere on the user's home directory (H:\Mozilla\)
No need to bother with vbscript. Just use locked settings in the mozilla.cfg file. This page [knaff.lu] described how. Just insert entries such as the following into your mozilla.cfg.txt:
Then encrypt the file to mozilla.cfg using this program [knaff.lu] (with an offset of 13). N.B. The mozilla.cfg.txt file must start with a comment (two slashes), and be referenced from all.js or else it will be ignored by mozilla. After having set up a mozilla.cfg, the user can no longer change the relevant settings (they are greyed out), and even if he does manually edit his prefs.js, mozilla will fix prefs.js the next time it starts up.
Re:Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
You aren't working with robots. People personalize their space to make it more comfortable to work in; lock them in cold blank walls with everything ISO-standard, they won't be happy. Give an inch.
Pink fonts in Monotype Corsiva on a light blue background makes it tough for me to troubleshoot.
Remember who uses the computer day in and day out. Not you.
Please reread that statement again and again when you feel like it's "Your Computer".
It's not "Your Computer", either. I'm not saying you should let pirate software and porn run around the computers, but complaining when the people that use the things change the fonts and colors to something that will make them more comfortable is excessive. Would you complain if someone moved the chair in the company car?
Re:Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
A genius in a sea of stupidity. How do you deal with it?
Re:Question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now why would you do that? The desk is not for your personal use, it's the property of the company, if you didn't pay for it, it ain't yours.
Do you fiddle with the settings on your office chair?
Now why would you do that? The chair is not for your personal use, it's the property of the company. It isn't any of the company's business what settings on the chair are most comfortable for you. Personalisation does not benefit the company.
I wish more end users would remember that.
(</sarcastic-rant> for those who need it)
The computer, just like any other accessory you use in your workplace must allow for some personalisation.
As an IT drone, it is not your job to dictate what background picture/colour I have. If having BIG white letters on a black background increases my productivity, you, on behalf of the company, should be happy, even though it means you'll get to spend a few more minutes with me in the event that I need some help.
Dispite what you may have read when reading the BOFH archives, the system administrator should NOT get to dictate every single detail about the computing environment in the workplace.
*These machines are not for your display of power* (Score:5, Insightful)
Those machines are also not there for the IT staff to use for some kind of power trip. Those machines are there to provide value to the company, which they presumably do when the users are working on them, not you. If the customizations they do make them work more effectively (translation: more motivated), that is good for the company. Certainly if they install viruses and stuff that creates trouble you need to take action, but the whining about text and background images is pathetic.
Somehow I thought that kind of tayloristic management (your desktop will show in 0.04 seconds faster if you don't have a background image) became almost extinct long ago. If you treat people like machines, they also react very cynical - and do as little work as possible without getting fired. Since there's an economic downturn I guess people will stick around - but if all your best men leave when it starts going up, I can't say I'm surprised. I wouldn't want to stick around at least...
Kjella
Good point! (Score:5, Funny)
What, you just said you are going to use Mozilla? You will trust our company security to some FREEWARE when Microsoft has made security the company's first priority for the whole year??? Right here I have a resume of a Visual Basic programmer who wants to migrate our e-commerce server to IIS, SQL server and server-side VBSCript, using Microsoft passport security architecture. I think I would give him a call. Certainly PROPRIETORY SOFTWARE is better than all the FREE-WARE you installed on our network...
Web Browser Kiosk Build-Experience (Score:5, Informative)
Your probably already know this, but I'll point out the obvious:
1. Set up a Ghost server for yourself. Maybe even look at a copy of Alteris LabExpert [altiris.com].
2. Backup often.
3. Set yourself a timeline with mile markers. Give yourself a few months, so you don't pull out your hair or have a mental break down. Plan a reasonable project timeline, such as 3 months.
4. Set up testing workstations. Get all of your networking issues out of the way before you start on Mozilla. TCP/IP or other protocol stacks should already be installed. All device drivers should already be installed.
5. Take the list which you've already made, and make the changes to the box. When you get the change to work, backup the box with your image server. Keep detailed notes of what you've just accomplished.
6. Repeat step 5 until all items are completed.
7. When step 6 is completed, backup the workstation, diff the image if needed, and push it onto workstations of similar hardware configuration. Either package the image as an application (tar, zip), an application image (ZenWorks, Active Directory resource, Ghost, etc), or an operating system image (SMS, Alteris, Ghost).
Once you get into the groove of the project, it'll go quickly.
Sorry for stating the obvious, but you're talking about a fairly complex network engineering task. Don't expect it to happen next week or even next month. Just make sure you have an imaging server and that you take good notes, and the project will go fine.
Some simple ideas. (Score:4, Interesting)
Use the first installation(full version) to generate all the files that contain the settings you want for each machine. And copy them to each machine after installing the crippled mozilla on them.
You should be able to achiave your goals like this, if each machine requires uniqe settings(email and such) then you have some work to do, but it should'nt be impossible.
Sysprep for varying hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
At the university where I am the network administrator, we use Microsoft's sysprep in conjunction with our Ghost images. If you run sysprep on your master machine before taking your Ghost image, Windows 2000 for instance will rebuild it's P-n-P database the first time it boots on a target machine and load all of the necessary drivers for the different hardware.
You can check out sysprep here [microsoft.com].
If, however, hardware is not your problem with deploying a single Ghost image, I'm sorry for the wasted bandwidth.
I feel so dirty. I'm a Mac guy giving advice for Windows. I'm going to shower now.
SiO2
I was thinking of doing this (Score:4, Informative)
CCK and other items (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the features can be edited with notepad in the prefs file, found in default/pref/all.js (and all-ns.js for Netscape builds). However, these are the few that I believe are not possible to change with those files:
- default homepage
- default browser
- Default Theme w/ Crystal
- Default Search Engine - Google
- default font (not sure)
- Quicklaunch (not sure about this one, see if something labeled "quicklaunch" is in the all.js file)
- Shortcut file
These are the items that I believe require some XUL knowledge in order for you to change them. And, if you read the Netscape 7 CCK license, you'll notice that Netscape does not allow you to change the default theme or Search Engine (mozilla.org does not have this restriction of course...Netscape has their own reasons for making this admittedly minor restriction). You'll notice that the default theme/search engine/homepage is referenced in the prefs.js as a chrome:// address.To change your setup options, you'll need to edit the SETUP.INI (or is it CONFIG.INI? i don't remember) file found with the install files. Note that if you use Netscape 7's CCK, you'll need to do this to expose the Instant Messenger option (and then disable that), since Netscape 7 only allows you to select both Mail and IM, not either/or.
I would also advise against not installing QFA. It's what allows the Mozilla/Netscape developers to figure out why crashes are happening and what they can do to fix it. It truly is the least you can do to contribute back to the project.
You CAN unzip the XPIs, edit the files, and rezip them. For more information on this, consult the CCK documentation that Netscape produces (it's actually helpful in this case). Using Winzip, all you'll have to do is make sure that you preserve the directory structure (Winzip doesn't make it immediately clear how the directories within a ZIP are organized...Winrar is better at this), and then rename the resulting .ZIP file to .XPI. (PDF LINK [netscape.com])
Winzip Self extractor (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is what you want (Score:4, Informative)
- Install Mozillia on one machine and set it up how you want
- Create an installer to do the installation
To make an installer download the following files- Inno Setup [jrsoftware.org] for building setups
- Script Maker [tafweb.com] a visual IDE to created Inno Setup Scripts for building installs.
It only takes about an hour or so to install both, then to run ScriptMaker to create an install, test that install on another machine, and the go back and tweek it till it works right. It will even support current user installs on NT/2000/XP.It should be able to install Georga as font on the machine if it is not already there. I will leave it up to you to figure out if you are violating any copyrights/software agreements by doing such.
Bart Bucks are not legal tender
Win32 architecture solution... (Score:4, Interesting)
I recommend using InstallRite [epsilonsquared.com] by Epsilon Squared Inc. [epsilonsquared.com] to automate installation of any application on multiple PCs with different hardware and software configurations.
It's easy to use and the documentation is good, IMHO. A big plus is that it is Freeware. Checking it out might be beneficial to you.
Ask Ben over a Beonex.com (Score:4, Interesting)
Check out this bug on bugzilla [mozilla.org] where the start of roaming profile code exists for your compiling and testing pleasure. roaming profile setup IMHO is the way to go if folks use at different machines at different times. Outside of what's in the works...for now, I'd manually configure one for each platform and copy the folder over. Several different XPI's can be rolled into one, but it does take some hacking skills.
Later this year, Hopefully, roaming will be up and running in Mozilla and with that bwill likely come some nice deployment tools.
Why do you need to do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
If all your users use Windows then why do you need to switch them? I am using mozilla to type this and its a great browser but alot of websites send my "connection refused" errors because I do not use IE. It takes alot of man hours and hassle to upgrade all the users not to mention can cause complaints if your users recieve the same error messages that I do on a few sites.
I know Microsoft is a bully and want to prevent users from switching since IE is free and comes standard with every computer, but there really is inertia that locks people in.
You have to ask yourself time is it really worth it to switch them? And also what benefits will it bring to your organization.
Re:Why do you need to do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
It always rubs me the wrong way when geeks here on slashdot argue how perfect the world would be if all the hack web authors wrote "properly coded" websites. It is just a undeniable reality that the web is chock full of wrongly-coded, badly-coded, intentionally-broken code, and it is important that any browser degrade gracefully under such circumstances[, at which Mozilla does a very respectable job].
Sitting back in a chair and ruminating about "properly coded" sites is not an option.
More on topic, I think that it is a huge mistake if the original poster forces his [ahem, non-standard] choice on the unsuspecting users. As IE is already installed on all Windows desktops already, and since all websites are written with IE as the target, he is setting himself up for a rude awakening.
Only on Slashdot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't use Mozilla (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't ignore the question (Score:5, Insightful)
Knee, meet Jerk. Jerk, meet Knee. Apparently neither Vallon nor his 3 or 4 moderators bothered to read the freaking question. The IT guy specifically wants to use the mail client as well as the browser, and probably NNTP too.
Just because Phoenix is small and 1337 doesn't mean it's the answer to world peace, minty fresh breath, or every question that contains the word "Mozilla".
Re:Tip of the Week (Score:3, Insightful)
No other reasons are given.
The FACT that applying the constant flow of security patches for IE is way harder and time consuming than using Mozilla doesn't seem important for you. IE is from Microsoft, go with IE. That's all what seems to matter to you.
Also IE being integrated in Windows is kinda problematic. IE updates may affect the rest of the system - Mozilla is independent from Windows, therefore much better to control and maintain. On top of that, you can EASILY have as many different Mozilla installations on your PC. (which can be useful on upgrading - if you don't want to take any risks just add the new version instead of replacing the old version). Also you can also downgrade Mozilla, but last time I checked, the only way to downgrade IE is to reinstall Windows... Mozilla is easier to integrate and support than IE and upgrading is much safer.
And most importantly, Mozilla does not chain you to a vendor. Microsoft may raise license prices anytime - again. It happened before, it can happen again.
Stick with Moz not Phoenix (Score:4, Informative)
Also the Mozilla development staff has been axed as well, so it too has slowed down at a very critical time when there have been a ton of regressions.
I'm a big fan of Mozilla(its all I use), so I hate to say these things which some people will undoubtably call FUD. But its not FUD and if you follow the project closely you'll know I'm not making this stuff up. Right now Mozilla is going through a very tough time and I really hope some new blood can come in to save it.
You'll excuse me for being a coward and not signing my name, but sorry that the way this has to be.
Re:Gov gotcha (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't remember what it's called or where to get it, and it didn't work for me (a lot of help I am).
But there's a plugin for Mozilla that lets you change the UserAgent string without physically modifing prefs.js. In my experience with Konqueror (an inferior browser, imho) sites that check aren't checking for a good reason. :) I strongly suspect that unless the site requires an activex plugin you won't have any trouble at all with it in Mozilla, you just have to get the UserAgent string to lie and say it's IE.