Firefox 60 ESR

Bearded_Blunder · 2018-07-30 20:14:20

I think when I was doing something similar with Seamonkey (effectively Firefox, but a nicer interface if you're an old fart hankering after win2k era UIs) I stuck the extracted tarball under ~/bin/seamonkey where my user has permissions for write, added the folder to my path so I could execute from a terminal without having to type the full path every time I wanted to launch it that way.

May not be an approved method in Linux (or might, I wasn't researching that), but I'm more a Windows admin, so I dunna care about the "Linux rules".

Anyhow, their install instructions would probably work for firefox simply by using "firefox" wherever it says "seamonkey", anyone wanting to look can find them here:
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/doc/i … -uninstall
Even though I mixed it up and kept it where i had write permission without sudo.

hhh · 2018-07-31 02:12:03

jimjamz wrote:

It's absolutely not possible to have firefox reside in /opt and firefox be able to auto-update itself, unless:
- you are running firefox as root
- you have changed the permissions of /opt so that it can be modified by users other than root.
`ls -la` on my /opt directory:
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Jun 19 14:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Jun 15 14:50 ..
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root 4096 Jun 19 14:41 firefox
With the introduction of 61.0.1, I'm once again being prompted that Firefox cannot auto update, and I must download it separately.
To confirm, having firefox in /opt, will not provide you with the button to auto update. Instead, a link is provided to the mozilla URL:
https://s33.postimg.cc/k2mpr40r3/2018-0 … _scrot.png

Firefox official is still at 61.0.1 and my browser has successfully updated several times...

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/releases/

When it hits 61.0.2, post again and I'll report whether or not I received an update.

BTW, I don't have that button...

johnraff · 2018-07-31 06:58:51

hhh wrote:

jimjamz wrote:
It's absolutely not possible to have firefox reside in /opt and firefox be able to auto-update itself, unless:
- you are running firefox as root
- you have changed the permissions of /opt so that it can be modified by users other than root.
...browser has successfully updated several times...

This is a complete mystery to me, unless, as jimjamz says, you're running it as root or have permissions on the files. How could it be otherwise?

ohnonot · 2018-07-31 09:27:22

i just looked around in /opt - on arch linux, the directory itself is root-owned, but i have at least one program in there (a game installed via AUR) that sets different permissions:

$ cd /opt
$ touch somefile
touch: cannot touch 'somefile': Permission denied
$ cd clonk_rage
$ touch somefile
$

maybe hhh has a similar situation?
hhh, could you show us the output of

ls -al /opt /opt/*firefox*

please?

hhh · 2018-08-09 22:22:35

rachel@TyrellCorp:~$ ls -al /opt /opt/*firefox*
/opt:
total 129596
drwxr-xr-x  3 root   root        4096 Jul 10 07:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 22 root   root        4096 Jul 23 10:05 ..
drwxr-xr-x 10 rachel rachel      4096 Aug  9 18:15 firefox
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel 132692824 Jun 29 16:02 Stremio+4.0.17.appimage

/opt/firefox:
total 107676
drwxr-xr-x 10 rachel rachel     4096 Aug  9 18:15 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root   root       4096 Jul 10 07:46 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      695 Aug  9 18:15 application.ini
drwxr-xr-x  4 rachel rachel     4096 Aug  9 18:15 browser
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel        0 Aug  9 18:15 chrome.manifest
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   254576 Jun 21 09:56 crashreporter
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     4003 Jun 21 09:00 crashreporter.ini
drwxr-xr-x  3 rachel rachel     4096 Jun 30 15:25 defaults
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      157 Jun 21 09:55 dependentlibs.list
drwxr-xr-x  2 rachel rachel     4096 Jun 30 15:25 dictionaries
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   195832 Aug  9 18:15 firefox
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   195832 Aug  9 18:15 firefox-bin
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     1449 Aug  9 18:15 firefox-bin.sig
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     1449 Aug  9 18:15 firefox.sig
drwxr-xr-x  2 rachel rachel     4096 Jun 30 15:25 fonts
drwxr-xr-x  3 rachel rachel     4096 Jun 30 15:25 gmp-clearkey
drwxr-xr-x  2 rachel rachel     4096 Jun 30 15:25 gtk2
drwxr-xr-x  2 rachel rachel     4096 Jun 30 15:25 icons
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      898 Aug  9 18:15 libfreeblpriv3.chk
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   567840 Jun 21 09:56 libfreeblpriv3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel    59960 Jun 21 09:56 liblgpllibs.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel  1675648 Jun 21 09:56 libmozavcodec.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   208728 Jun 21 09:56 libmozavutil.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel     6072 Jun 21 09:56 libmozgtk.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel    93208 Jun 21 09:56 libmozsandbox.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel  1034008 Aug  9 18:15 libmozsqlite3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   261248 Aug  9 18:15 libnspr4.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   697336 Jun 21 09:56 libnss3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   458008 Jun 21 09:56 libnssckbi.so
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      899 Aug  9 18:15 libnssdbm3.chk
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   158824 Jun 21 09:56 libnssdbm3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   196344 Jun 21 09:56 libnssutil3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel    18800 Jun 21 09:55 libplc4.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel    18672 Aug  9 18:15 libplds4.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   176952 Jun 21 09:56 libsmime3.so
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      899 Aug  9 18:15 libsoftokn3.chk
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   266448 Jun 21 09:56 libsoftokn3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   332664 Jun 21 09:56 libssl3.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel 84993408 Aug  9 18:15 libxul.so
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     1449 Aug  9 18:15 libxul.so.sig
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   860864 Jun 21 09:56 minidump-analyzer
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel 16642664 Aug  9 18:15 omni.ja
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   285976 Aug  9 18:15 pingsender
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      166 Aug  9 18:15 platform.ini
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   187488 Aug  9 18:15 plugin-container
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     1449 Aug  9 18:15 plugin-container.sig
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     2376 Aug  9 18:15 precomplete
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel        0 Aug  9 18:15 removed-files
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      825 Jun 21 09:00 Throbber-small.gif
-rwxr-xr-x  1 rachel rachel   256672 Aug  9 18:15 updater
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      681 Jun 21 09:55 updater.ini
drwxr-xr-x  3 rachel rachel     4096 Aug  9 18:15 updates
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel      132 Jun 21 09:55 update-settings.ini
-rw-r--r--  1 rachel rachel     2299 Aug  9 18:15 updates.xml
rachel@TyrellCorp:~$

The update for 61.0.2 just came through on startup, once again I missed the scrot...

Maybe it's just updating my configs and I actually don't have current FF security updates? The official Mozilla instructions say to keep and run FF in your home folder.

hhh · 2018-08-09 22:30:35

So, better I guess to keep the firefox folder somewhere in home and create your simlynk in ~./bin

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/in … efox-linux

ohnonot · 2018-08-10 05:25:07

hhh, you have the exact same situation i described in my previous post.
your /opt/firefox folder is user-owned.
in that case i see no difference whether firefox is in /opt or under your home.
you put that there yourself?

johnraff · 2018-08-10 06:23:55

ohnonot wrote:

your /opt/firefox folder is user-owned.
in that case i see no difference whether firefox is in /opt or under your home.

Nor me.

Jimbo_G · 2018-08-10 16:22:43

I exactly followed hhh's tutorial back at post #3 and can confirm that I do not have the latest update. I'm still on 61.0.1 and the About page just says "updates available at https://www.mozilla.org/firefox".

hhh · 2018-08-11 21:38:12

johnraff wrote:

ohnonot wrote:
your /opt/firefox folder is user-owned.
in that case i see no difference whether firefox is in /opt or under your home.
Nor me.

Same here. Yes, I extracted the firefox tar to ~/Downloads, opened Thunar as root and moved it to /opt. Indeed, it shows the owner as 'rachel' (my current user-name). Confirmed the privileges by opening Thunar as user and I can copy/paste files into /opt/firefox without issue. I feel confident that since I ran /usr/local/bin/firefox from my 'rachel' session that it auto-updated properly.

@jimbo, check your /opt/firefox, what privileges does it have? Maybe you didn't fully follow my instructions?

BTW, the Debian Wiki describes downloading FF to /home. extracting it, moving it to /opt and creating a symlink in /usr/local/bin in nearly the same way...

If you want to be able to launch Firefox from the command line, you need to create a symlink to the firefox executable in some folder that is included in your PATH variable, such as /usr/local/bin. For example, if you uncompressed the downloaded archive in /opt, you would do it like this:
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/

https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#Firefox … nd_Nightly

https://wiki.debian.org/Permissions

johnraff · 2018-08-12 02:34:11

hhh wrote:

I extracted the firefox tar to ~/Downloads, opened Thunar as root and moved it to /opt. Indeed, it shows the owner as 'rachel' (my current user-name).

Something's wrong here. /opt belongs to root and OK you had to run Thunar as root in order to put any files there. What's weird is that the Firefox files are owned by you! They should belong to root. Did you change the ownership after?

I feel confident that since I ran /usr/local/bin/firefox from my 'rachel' session that it auto-updated properly.

That's because you own the files. That's not a normal situation.

---
Part of the Linux security model is that user executables' files belong to root, but are run by an ordinary user. This limits the damage they can do to the system if they are compromised by an intruder, or in the hands of an inexperienced user. This means, though, that executables themselves can only be modified or upgraded by root.

The write permission can be off for users while still allowing them execute permission, so where the symlink is located doesn't matter, as long as it's somewhere in $PATH. (Even if it isn't in $PATH, you can run it using the full path.)

An exception can be made if users choose to install executables somewhere inside their $HOME. Then they own the files and can modify them however they like. The same applies to any intruder though, so this is a less secure option. Such invasions might be rare, but they can happen.

Web browsers, especially, by definition are roaming all over the internet and might come into contact with all kinds of nasty code. Modern web sites think nothing of sending out multiple javascript files for browsers to execute. They are supposed to be safe, but vulnerabilities do happen, so we should be careful.

DeepDayze · 2018-08-12 03:04:59

I find the best way is to install FF to your home folder usually to your $HOME/bin/firefox. This way it's easy to update it.

ohnonot · 2018-08-12 06:01:46

not sure if anything is wrong per se; using firefox from a folder under your $HOME has been fairly standard for a long while.
but i agree it would be safer to have it installed with root privileges, and run with user privileges.
otoh, debian wiki clearly specifies both options.
if i was hhh i would either move it out of /opt and into $HOME, or change ownership to root. just to have a clearer situation.

Doberdad · 2018-08-16 02:01:02

Worked for me. Only problem is that the icon is missing in TINT2.

jimjamz · 2018-08-21 13:39:17

Sorry, I didn't see page 2 before replying but anyway, to reinforce the point ...

This is the key to your ability to update without being 'root':

hhh wrote:

drwxr-xr-x 10 rachel rachel      4096 Aug  9 18:15 firefox

because 'rachel' is both the owner and group member (and I presume you are 'rachel'), you have unrestricted permissions to this directory, but not its parent directory (the directory above it, /root). This is not really a recommended way of applying permissions to a directory structure.

The question is, why the owner is 'rachel' for a sub-directory of a directory that is owned by 'root'? I'm more interested how you initially created the firefox directory and extrcted the files from the archive to that directory, because:

extracting as 'rachel':

tar -xvf firefox-61.0.2.tar.bz2 -C /opt/

would not allow you to do this in a directory owned by 'root', so:

extracting as 'root':

sudo tar -xvf firefox-61.0.2.tar.bz2 -C /opt/

would extract the directory under /opt but the sub-directory (firefox would be owned by 'root' also:

drwxr-xr-x 9 root root      4096 Aug  21 18:30 firefox

jimjamz · 2018-08-21 13:53:09

johnraff wrote:

Something's wrong here. /opt belongs to root and OK you had to run Thunar as root in order to put any files there. What's weird is that the Firefox files are owned by you! They should belong to root. Did you change the ownership after?

Because when the initial extraction was done, it was extracted to a local directory under /home, setting the ownership to 'rachel'. Then, when the files are moved (not copied), the permissions are retained, regardless of their destination (providing it's on the same disk). If the directory was copied, the owner would be 'root''.

hhh · 2018-08-22 01:03:56

jimjamz wrote:

Because when the initial extraction was done, it was extracted to a local directory under /home, setting the ownership to 'rachel'. Then, when the files are moved (not copied), the permissions are retained, regardless of their destination (providing it's on the same disk). If the directory was copied, the owner would be 'root''.

And that's what I did, I opened thunar via pkexec and cut/pasted (NOT copy/pasted) the firefox folder to /opt. But I'd recommend leaving it somewhere in your home directory on a single-user system. Throw it in a dot folder if you don't want to see it.

-edit- Clarity.

johnraff · 2018-08-22 02:37:47

jimjamz wrote:

johnraff wrote:
Something's wrong here. /opt belongs to root and OK you had to run Thunar as root in order to put any files there. What's weird is that the Firefox files are owned by you! They should belong to root. Did you change the ownership after?
Because when the initial extraction was done, it was extracted to a local directory under /home, setting the ownership to 'rachel'. Then, when the files are moved (not copied), the permissions are retained, regardless of their destination (providing it's on the same disk). If the directory was copied, the owner would be 'root''.

Thank you! Now it all makes sense.

Jimbo_G · 2018-08-28 14:50:47

hhh wrote:

jimjamz wrote:
Because when the initial extraction was done, it was extracted to a local directory under /home, setting the ownership to 'rachel'. Then, when the files are moved (not copied), the permissions are retained, regardless of their destination (providing it's on the same disk). If the directory was copied, the owner would be 'root''.
And that's what I did, I opened thunar via pkexec and cut/pasted (NOT copy/pasted) the firefox folder to /opt. But I'd recommend leaving it somewhere in your home directory on a single-user system. Throw it in a dot folder if you don't want to see it.
-edit- Clarity.

Okay, I finally understand - that explains why my FF isn't updating because I followed hhh's mini-tutorial back at post #3 where it says to copy (not move) the folder to /opt.

Having seen the other replies I think I'll move it back to $HOME. It could be worth updating that original post?

hhh · 2018-08-29 00:26:45

Grrr... looking for original post (link, please?)...

#21 2018-07-30 20:14:20

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#22 2018-07-31 02:12:03

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#23 2018-07-31 06:58:51

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#24 2018-07-31 09:27:22

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#25 2018-08-09 22:22:35

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#26 2018-08-09 22:30:35

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#27 2018-08-10 05:25:07

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#28 2018-08-10 06:23:55

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#29 2018-08-10 16:22:43

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#30 2018-08-11 21:38:12

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#31 2018-08-12 02:34:11

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#32 2018-08-12 03:04:59

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#33 2018-08-12 06:01:46

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#34 2018-08-16 02:01:02

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#35 2018-08-21 13:39:17

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#36 2018-08-21 13:53:09

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#37 2018-08-22 01:03:56

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#38 2018-08-22 02:37:47

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#39 2018-08-28 14:50:47

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

#40 2018-08-29 00:26:45

Re: Firefox 60 ESR

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