[K12OSN] Lock down proxy settings and home page

murrah boswell otrcomm at isp-systems.net
Sun May 31 23:43:39 UTC 2009


Hello Michael,

Michael Paric wrote:
> The proxy,  home page and other preferences are saved in the file:
> 
> /home/<user_name>/.mozilla/firefox/<id_number>/prefs.js

I am testing with K12Linux 5EL that uses Firefox 3 running on top of xulrunner. I tried to modify a test account prefs.js file but 
Firefox didn't pay any attention to the changes. I just tried to lock the browser.startup.homepage setting with:

lockPref("browser.startup.page", 1);
lockPref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.google.com/");

and it had no impact.

Under K12LTSP 5, I can lock Firefox 2 down tighter than a drum, but Firefox 3 is another animal. What version of Firefox are you using?

Thanks,
Murrah Boswell

> 
> What we did at our high school was to create a master prefs.js file in 
> the /etc/skel/ directory that was only writable by root (but readable by 
> all). Then if we needed to update the preferences (change proxy server, 
> home page, etc.) we ran this simple shell script called prefsupdate.sh 
> as root:
> 
> #/bin/bash
> cd /home
> for user in `ls -d *`
> do
>     DEST=`ls /home/$user/.mozilla/firefox/*/prefs.js`
>     echo $DEST
>     cp --preserve=mode /etc/skel/prefs.js $DEST
> done
> 
> Automatically updated everyone's Firefox preferences (including proxy 
> settings) but since it was not writable by user, it effectively locked 
> them out of changing it. Not automatic when adding new users but simple 
> and quick enough to run when you did.
> 
> Hope it helps!
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Michael Paric
> Computer Business Solutions
> 707-317-6710
> mparic at compbizsolutions.com
> www.compbizsolutions.com
> 
> 
>> Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 08:55:06 -0400
>> From: Rob Owens <rowens at ptd.net>
>> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Lock down proxy settings and home page
>> To: "Support list for open source software in schools."
>>     <k12osn at redhat.com>
>> Message-ID: <20090531125506.GB7385 at aurora.owens.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>> I know that you can lock down settings in the Epiphany browser, using 
>> gconf.  Users will find it very similar to Firefox.  Google for "gnome 
>> lockdown".
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 10:30:08PM -0700, murrah boswell wrote:
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> Does anybody know how to lock down proxy and home page settings in
>>> firefox through K12LTSP EL5? I need to be able to selectively lock down
>>> some workstations that will be in a "student" group so they can only
>>> access certain educational sites. Access to these sites will be
>>> controlled through a SquidGuard whitelist.
>>>
>>> I can do this fine using the login script function of Samba and Firefox
>>> running on windows based workstations, and can also lock down IE.
>>>
>>> Locking down Firefox on windows workstation requires that I rewrite
>>> (through vbs scripts pushed over at login and executed) some config 
>>> files
>>> under C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox and C:\Programs Files\Mozilla
>>> Firefox\greprefs. Anybody know how to do get the same results through
>>> K12LTSP EL5?
>>>
>>> I can force all thin client traffic through port 3128 with Squid running
>>> as a transparent proxy and eliminate the need to configure client proxy
>>> settings in Firefox, but I would also like to have clients authenticate
>>> so I can manipulate SquidGuard based on username.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Murrah Boswell
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> K12OSN mailing list
>>> K12OSN at redhat.com
>>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
>>> For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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