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| Running ${PKGSTEM} on OpenBSD
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If you encounter strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads,
window placement, toolbars, history, or other settings, it is
recommended that you create a new profile and attempt to
reproduce the problem before filing bugs. To create a new profile,
start Firefox with the -ProfileManager switch, e.g.
${MOZILLA_PROJECT} -ProfileManager, and click "Create Profile".
If Firefox doesn't start at all, try starting it with the -safe-mode
switch, which temporarily disables extensions and themes.
pledge(2) and unveil(2) Support
===============================
Firefox on OpenBSD is secured with pledge(2) and unveil(2) to limit
the system calls and filesystem access that each of Firefox's three
process types (main, content, and GPU) is permitted. By default,
only ~/Downloads and /tmp can be written to when downloading files,
or when viewing local files as file:// URLs. You can edit the
following files to change the pledge promises, unveil paths, and
associated permissions:
${SYSCONFDIR}/${MOZILLA_PROJECT}/{unveil,pledge}.{main,content,gpu}
3rd-Party MIME Handlers
=======================
Due to unveil(2) limiting filesystem access, special care has to be
taken to unveil MIME handlers. For example, to use the mupdf package
to read PDFs, it must be registered as the default with XDG:
$ xdg-mime default mupdf.desktop application/pdf
And the corresponding binary must be unveiled for it to appear as an
option in the "Open With" drop-down for example adding the following
line to ${SYSCONFDIR}/${MOZILLA_PROJECT}/unveil.main:
${LOCALBASE}/bin/mupdf rx
The current default for a given type can be viewed with xdg-mime's
query command:
$ xdg-mime query default application/pdf
Alternatively, you can use mailcap, for example a ~/.mailcap file of:
application/pdf; ${LOCALBASE}/bin/xpdf %s
As with the XDG approach, the application(s) will need to be included in
${SYSCONFDIR}/${MOZILLA_PROJECT}/unveil.main.
Using mailto: links
===================
In order for mailto: links in Firefox to open your mail program,
you may have to set a mailto protocol handler. Type "about:config"
in Firefox's URL text field. Type "mailto" in the filter. If there
is a string called "network.protocol-handler.app.mailto", its value
names the application for mailto URLs. If present, right click,
choose Modify, and enter the path to your mail program, e.g.,
"${LOCALBASE}/bin/thunderbird" or "${LOCALBASE}/bin/kmail" (other
programs may work, but these two have been tested). If absent,
right click, choose New String. Set the name to
"network.protocol-handler.app.mailto" and the value to the path to
your mailer.
Debugging
=========
If you encounter crashes, you might want to build the debug FLAVOR of
this package, and run firefox inside egdb, so that you can gather
debugging logs and traces (for all threads!).
If this is a pledge violation, please try to find out which codepath
in which process leads to calling a forbidden syscall, and which pledge
is missing from the sets configured according to the section above.
Setting MOZ_LOG=OpenBSDSandbox:5 should help. Bug reports without
enough information will be ignored.
To disable pledge and/or unveil support when troubleshooting, set the
corresponding pledge or unveil file in
${SYSCONFDIR}/${MOZILLA_PROJECT}/{unveil,pledge}.{main,content,gpu} to contain
just "disable".
D-BUS
=====
For proper integration with various desktop-oriented components, firefox
needs a session bus instance running.
If you're not running a desktop environment that takes care of it,
refer to /usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes/dbus to configure your
session startup script to start one.
If a session bus is not running, this port fakes the existence of one
(see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1466593). However,
GLIB can still try to spawn a session bus which can then lead to a 'proc'
pledge violation in the content process.
HTML5 audio/video support
=========================
For a full multimedia experience, such as playing MP3 audio or MPEG
videos, install the "ffmpeg" package:
# pkg_add ffmpeg
WebRTC support
==============
For WebRTC to work properly, you need to enable audio and video recording:
# sysctl kern.audio.record=1
# sysctl kern.video.record=1
You will also need to change the ownership and/or permissions of the
relevant video(4) device so that your user can access the webcam
device e.g.:
# chown youruser /dev/video0
Screen sharing needs shmget() which isnt available when pledge() is active, so
you will have to disable pledge for the main process.
KerberosV support
=================
To use Kerberized Firefox, first manually install the "heimdal" package
and configure the Kerberos client.
Firefox will load the libraries at runtime if required. On OpenBSD, they
are installed in a non-standard location; to allow Firefox to find them,
either set LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${LOCALBASE}/heimdal/lib in your environment
(possibly via a shell alias or wrapper script if you only want to
set this for Firefox), or modify 'shlib_dirs' in /etc/rc.conf.local.
To instruct Firefox to use Kerberos for specific domains, open
'about:config' and modify the following key:
network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris: .example.com
Graphic Acceleration
====================
By default, OpenGL acceleration is disabled. One can enable it by
setting MOZ_ACCELERATED=1 in the environment, or by switching the about:config
layers.acceleration.force-enable knob to true. Check the 'Decision log'
section in about:support to see whether HW_COMPOSITING and OPENGL_COMPOSITING
are enabled.
Similarly, the rust-based WebRender compositor can be enabled by setting
MOZ_WEBRENDER=1 in the environment, or by switching the about:config
gfx.webrender.enabled knob to true. Check it is enabled in the 'Features'
section of about:support. For this feature, WebGL2 is necessary, so your
hardware must support at least OpenGL 4.
See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/Quantum_Render for more details.
