Firefox-Update-Cache

This application caches firefox-update-packages

Features

• Cache firefox-update-files
• Set a maximum version for all your clients

Requirements

• Nginx
• gunicorn
• python 3

Deployment

This Application is just a Flask server that downloads the required

Overview

1. Install Nginx, Python and gunicorn
2. install the required python packages
3. clone this repo
4. configure gunicorn
5. configure nginx
6. Configure all of your firefox clients to fetch their updates from the newly created server
7. configure this server

Deployment

These instructions are for Ubuntu/debian but you can adapt these to fit your deployment target.

Install python3-venv

$ sudo apt install python3-venv

Clone this Repo

$ git clone https://github.com/theodor-franke/firefox-update-cache.git
$ cd firefox-update-cache

Create a virtual environment and activate it

$ python3 -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate

Install the required python packages

$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ pip install gunicorn

create a folder where your update-files will be stored. This folder can be at any place in your system. In this example it will be right in the project directory. If you put it somewhere else you have to change the path in the settings.py file.

$ mkdir updates

Open the settings.pyfile and change the SERVER_URLvariable to your serves IP or FQDN.

SERVER_URL = 'http://<YOUR_SERVERS_IP_OR_FQDN>'

Next thing to do is to set up gunicorn to run the server. In this example I will create a systemd service unit file. Creating a systemd unit file will allow Ubuntu’s init system to automatically start this application whenever the server boots.

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/firefox-update-cache.service

Now edit this file. Swap out <YOUR_PATH>with the path where you cloned this repo.

[Unit]
Description=Firefox-Update-Cache
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=<YOUR_PATH>/firefox-update-cache
Environment="PATH=<YOUR_PATH>/firefox-update-cache/venv/bin"
ExecStart=<YOUR_PATH>/firefox-update-cache/venv/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind unix:firefox-update-cache.sock  wsgi:app

Start the new created service

$ sudo systemctl start firefox-update-cache

Configure Nginx to serve the gunicorn app. Create a new file in /etc/nginx/sites-available called firefox-update-cache

$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/firefox-update-cache

Paste the following into the new created file and change in the required paths

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name <YOUR_SERVERS_IP_OR_FQDN>;

    location / {
         autoindex on;
         root  <PATH_TO_UPDATE_FOLDER>;
    }
		
    location /update/ {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:<YOUR_PATH>/firefox-update-cache.sock;
    }
}

Test for any errors in your NGINX settings

$ sudo nginx -t

Restart NGINX

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

if everything is ok you can test if the server is functioning. Open a web-browser and navigate to the following URL:

http://<YOUR_SERVERS_IP_OR_FQDN>/update/2/Firefox/65.0/20190124174741/Linux_x86_64-gcc3/de/release/Linux%205.4.0-58-generic%20(GTK%203.24.20%2Clibpulse%2013.99.0)/update.xml

you should get an XML file with one patch. Note: the URL of the patch should start with https://aus5.mozilla.org. If you refresh the page again this should change to the IP or FQDN you set in settings.py

The only thing left to do is to change the app.update.urlof your Firefox clients. This can only be done with the policies.json file, GPOs or the plistfile. You can read how to do this here.

Change the app.update.url to this:

http://<YOUR_SERVERS_IP_OR_FQDN>/update/2/%PRODUCT%/%VERSION%/%BUILD_ID%/%BUILD_TARGET%/%LOCALE%/%CHANNEL%/%OS_VERSION%/update.xml