I'm building a launcher for internal use with a Chrome packaged app which includes links to internal resources (databases, web links, etc.).
The problem is with local files. I want them to launch using whatever program is the default handler for them. For example, access databases open in Access, etc.
I've tried:
Creating a file link file:///. Nothing happens in this scenario on click and the link is not followed.
I found an extension (locallinks) here: https://code.google.com/p/locallinks/, which will open local file links. I've tried borrowing from that extension and passing the file link to the background script in my packaged app which would then open a new window with that url. Unfortunately, that results in a file not found, even for simple types such as text files. So obviously the local filesystem is sandboxed. Not surprising.
I thought maybe it would work to pass the link to an extension to open, but in that case, the file would be opened in Chrome and if Chrome does not support it, it would attempt to download the file locally.
The reason I'm using Chrome Packaged Apps is:
1. This will be updated often and the Chrome Web Store update feature would make it easy to keep clients updated without having to build our own update mechanism.
2. We can restrict installation of the app through CWS to internal users.
3. The app would be used in a Windows, Linux and Mac environment. Obviously the file paths here would be different but since they would point to a samba share, and mount points and network share drive's are known this is an easy problem to overcome.
4. There is additional functionality we will be building into the Chrome app in the future other than the launcher which fits very well with how Chrome Apps are designed.
My thoughts are:
Native Client? I have read a bit about these, but I think I would end up with the same limitations where the native client app would be sandboxed and may not actually have any better way of launching a local file.
Sockets? Maybe a simple Qt app listening on a socket to launch apps? Since the Qt app would be run with user permissions, and the socket would only accept connections from localhost, I guess the socket could in theory be used by a non-privileged app to launch something with user-level permissions. Is there a way for me to limit connections through the socket to only be accessible from my extension?
The sockets solution isn't ideal but may work since the app would not be updated often (if ever) since functionality is so simple.
Am I missing an obvious way of doing this that wouldn't require another component (a Qt app?)
Relating to your thought #2, not sure what local installation footprint you are willing to tolerate, but you may consider:
Hosting a miniscule local web server, or Qt app as you mention, which can also launch local programs (any of those lightweight web server frameworks). Have your packaged app, or your own chrome extension rewrite links such that they point at your web server along with the url of the original link, which can easily launch whatever program. Downsides: this may cause bypassing some browser security screening of the original links in some forms of implementation.
You may also look at this stackoverflow question if it helps.
You can limit access by confirming the requests originate from the local machine, or by embedding a key or hash inside your chrome extension. You may generate the key upon installation so that it's unique per machine. None of this will pass very proper security scrutiny so it depends on your risk profile. You will have a hard time justifying how each part is secure and clean of exploitation attack potential.
It seems you will need both a chrome extension and a local miniscule web server to make this work. Maybe it's easier to let users just download the files and click them...
Sorry if this isn't help enough, but basically you are trying to do something that is by design not made possible in Chrome, so at this state of affairs there would likely not be a simple solution.
Related
So I'm trying to find a way to add default file extensions options to Firefox. Since for whatever reason it doesn't give you the option?
Example: Settings > General > Applications
I want to add new content types and then be able to select my default application of choice.
The current issue is, that I use an MSP client that when necessary allows us to remote into a client's workstation for troubleshooting. Normally one would just click on the "Start Remote Session," button, and it brings up the application to do so. However, since it operates in some form of Javascript (I think....?), it doesn't technically download a file for me to save and then execute through the app. It just opens the app automatically. It never gives me the option to save the a file or anything like that, that it would use for the Remote Session app.
So I want to figure out how to bypass this issue by just adding the extension needed for this process in Firefox's default content types.
Works on Windows, I'm currently on Linux. (So please don't tell me to not use linux or any form there of. That or to use wine or playonlinux. I already am)
I have a Google Chrome Extension which uses a native host. This is used only on a windows box and the extension's registry settings are added along with the installation of the native host exe. Currently the the port (chrome.runtime.connectNative) or native host is started when the extensions background script is loaded. This currently means that the native host runs whenever Google Chrome is running.
The extension is used for only 1 website "www.example.com" and so content scripts only run when a tab with this website is loaded. This means that the native host would only be needed when a tab with this website is loaded and not all the time.
I now want to also create an Edge Chromium extension and give users the option to use either Edge or Chrome. As I indicated above both extensions would be "installed" meaning the registry keys added on installation of the native host. This means the extensions would be there for both browsers.
My main question is thus when and how should the native host be started.
From this main question I have a whole host of thoughts or questions;
When the user chooses to use Edge or Chromium should I at that point be making the changes to the registry? Problem here is users can of course independently of my app install the extension.
Is there a problem just leaving things as they are. In other words if Edge and Chromium are running then there are 2 different native hosts running and my app simply chooses which native host to communicate with based on the users choice. Problem here is you can see the native host process running in task manager and it would therefore be running for a browser that the user has not chosen which might not be OK for some users.
I thought about the extension having a flag to know if it should start the native host. Problem here is how could I turn this flag on. Without the native host I am unaware of a way to interact with the extension.
There are possibly more options so happy to hear them as well.
changes to the registry
Add chrome-extension://id/ with the id of your second extension to allowed_origins in the host's manifest as shown in the documentation.
there are 2 different native hosts running
Each host is started by its respective extension and it can communicate only to that parent extension, there's no confusion.
a flag to know if it should start the native host. Problem here is how could I turn this flag on. Without the native host I am unaware of a way to interact with the extension.
It depends on what the host and the extension do. Maybe you don't need to run the host all the time or maybe you can start it only when a tab with the matching URL is loaded. Maybe you can use the new experimental onConnectNative mechanism.
I am porting my NPAPI based plugin to Native messaging host for Chrome.
I can connect to it successfully and also run the host application.
But the host application (win32 GUI App) uses many win32 API's like CreateFile to update itself and other utilities from server.
The host app is installed in Program Files folder through an installer process (setup.exe). So since the host application runs on current user rights ( I may be wrong on this) the host might not have some rights (like in my case CreateFile) in the program files folder.
Through NPAPI it used to work as the executable i guess runs under System Rights (I may be wrong on this too).
So basically is there any way I can achieve this. I know this might be a security concern Chrome is trying to solve through Native Host, but I need to do this as otherwise some executable will not be updated from server.
Also the native host application requires some more files to be downloaded from server ( which i could not be placed in the installer).
Moreover, the source code to update the executables and download extra utilities is cross platform so I don't to change that, otherwise I might need to rewrite a lot of code.
So any suggestions to get around this situation ?
Is there some way we can get elevated permissions for the native host application through UAC or something. I don't mind if user is prompted for a UAC dialog.
Or are there any other alternative besides Native Messaging ? NaCl won't suffice either I guess.
Note : GetLastError() reutrns ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED during CreateFile.
Regards,
LazyCoder7.
I need a service application in Firefox OS which should start at boot time. I searched several sites but didn't get anything useful. Also I would like to know what all changes should be made in the manifest file and js file. Also the requirement of index.html file.
There is the Background Services, but it's not available yet, and tagged a certified app right now. So it's not possible at the moment.
The most relevant API that could act as 'service' is alarm API, which allow app to trigger itself periodically and do some stat checking. Calendar/Email App use that technique to pull new event/mail from internet.
Ref: http://tech.mozilla.com.tw/posts/2223
I'm writting a script that sets up a lot of different applications in Windows (mainly svn and open source servers for http, dns, mail, ftp and db). This script is intended to be executed in new/clean Windows workstations for new developers, it automatically sets everything up to create an environment very similar to the one in production. After it's executed, everything runs locally and the developer can start working right away.
This not only helps new developers, but all existing developers whenever there are changes in the whole system, everything is replicated locally.
The one thing I'm still not able to do is making some kind of backup of an IIS server that is running a web app (it's in the Prod server) and restoring it automatically to the new developer's machine so he doesn't have to install/configure IIS locally.
I've read about using appcmd.exe to create and restore backups, but that works only for the same machine (it uses encryption keys and those keys change between computers).
Is there a way, a scriptable way, to take everything IIS related from one server and restore it on another server, without user intervention and having the restored IIS run exactly as the original?
Thanks in advance!
Francisco
Just putting this here so anyone who comes across this will have an understanding as to why this wasn't answered. A website has a massive amount of variables associated with it that prevents any easy methods to copy all of its configuration through one or even just a few cmdlets.
To get started though you would want to become very familiar with the applicationHost.config file and how you access the properties within it using the Get-WebConfigurationProperty. One way to get familiar with how to script against webconfiguration properties is to use the Configuration Editor in IIS. Whenever you make a change in the Configuration Editor, before commiting the changes there is a nifty little link titled Generate Script, which will have a Powershell tab you can use to help you gather the proper Get/Set commands for the configuration elements within the applicationHost.config file.
I've created something almost exactly like what the OP is looking for and it spans 4 modules (over 20,000 lines of code) and has a SQL backend that holds all of the configuration elements.
When a website has everything from underlying DLLs that may need registered, IsapiCGI Restrictions and IsapiFilters, accounts that are tied to the AppPool that may need added to certain local groups on the server, to secure bindings that require a certificate to be loaded on the server. You can see that this isn't a simple undertaking. (and these are just a small portion of the variables that a website may contain)
There is however a large chunk of cmdlets that Microsoft provides you out of the box that you can leverage to aid you in developing something like this inside the WebAdministration module. I know this is four years old but hope anyone who stumbled on this will find the above useful.