question/suggestion: centralized custom filter/whitelist settings?

[jdsemma]

Background: I have a number of Chromebooks under managed enrollment in a Google Apps domain. I'd like to push uBlock Origin out to all of them (which we can easily do), but I'd also like to be able to create our own custom filter (actually mostly whitelists) and also push that out to all of the Chromebooks. If the app/extension is set up to support a config file, we can easily do that through Google Apps as well.

Can this be done, and if not currently, can it be put on the feature request list?

(Edited to add: more info on config files here: http://www.chromium.org/administrators/configuring-policy-for-extensions)

[gorhill]

If I understand correctly what you want to accomplish, it's already supported in Firefox. However for Chromium-based browsers, I have been waiting for such request so that I can test the code I need to hook to chrome.storage.managed.

I will let you know when I have something.

[jdsemma]

Yes, exactly. Thank you for considering this! And yes, obviously, for use on Chromebooks this is Chromium-based (although I have no idea where the config file is stores on ChromeOS.)

[gorhill]

Implemented in 1.3.2b2. I will need you to validate whether this works, I do not have the environment to test this.

[jdsemma]

I tested, but can't tell if my test config file isn't right (although it loads without error), or if this isn't working.

For a test config file, I went to uBlock options (after adding specific things to the whitelist) and did 'backup to file'. I then loaded that file into the Chrome App Management tool, and forced the app to auto-install to a specific testing user. The user gets the app just fine, but only with the default config. The config I installed isn't being pushed across.

Thinking after reading more that the config will only look for "adminSettings", I made a new config file like this:

{
"timeStamp": 1446240370977,
"version": "1.3.2",
"adminSettings": {"colorBlindFriendly": true }
}

That's it. I loaded that, no errors, but the config isn't being pushed out. Confirmed via chrome://policy that no policies are being loaded for uBlock Origin.

(Ideally I'd like to be able to push a custom netWhitelist addition, but I'll be satisfied with being able to add to externalLists.)

[gorhill]

Thinking after reading more that the config will only look for "adminSettings", I made a new config file like this:

That's not a valid backup file, it contains nothing of value for uBO. Try:

{
    "userSettings": {
        "colorBlindFriendly": true
    }
}

What I did is:

• Open a backup file created from clicking the uBO's "Backup to file".
• Remove all entries which are not to be overwritten.

Now, assign the resulting string (it must pass as a valid JSON string) to the entry adminSettings in the managed storage. That last part I am assuming admins know how to to this, I don't know myself, I just read from the managed storage (it's read-only from an extension's point of view).

[jdsemma]

I am guessing wildly as to how to set up the config file, based on the example given at http://www.chromium.org/administrators/configuring-policy-for-extensions.

I've tried

{ "adminSettings": { "Value": [ { "userSettings": [ {"colorBlindFriendly": true } ] } ] } }

(after running that through jsonlint to make sure it's valid), and.... no value is being assigned to adminSettings.

[gorhill]

The value of adminSettings is supposed to be a valid JSON string, I see it is set to an array of one object in your snippet. A valid JSON string of what you are trying is:

{ "userSettings": { "colorBlindFriendly": true } }

This must be used as a literal string, i.e. the type of Value needs to be string.

(there was a typo in my above example, I just fixed it).

[jdsemma]

So:

{ "adminSettings": { "Value": { "userSettings": {"colorBlindFriendly": true } } } }

?

Tried that, still says no policy set.

[gorhill]

Ok, I followed the doc for Linux at the link you posted above, and it worked here. I created a JSON policy file name ublock0.json in /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/, and this is the content of the file:

{
  "3rdparty": {
    "extensions": {
      "cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm": {
        "adminSettings": "{ \"userSettings\": {\"colorBlindFriendly\": true } }"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then I restarted Chrome, and the "Color blind friendly" setting was checked. For other OS, I can't tell.

Notice how the value of adminSettings is a JSON string, for which double-quotes needed to be escaped -- because the string is itself used as a JSON string value.

This is what Chrome's chrome://policy showed after restart:

[gorhill]

Note that as mentioned, I rely on feedback to fine-tune this, and I think I will also offer the ability to encode the value as plain JSON -- not force a stringified JSON, to enable not having to escape double-quotes.

[jdsemma]

Sounds like. I tried this:

{ "adminSettings": { "Value": { \"userSettings\": {\"colorBlindFriendly\": true } } } }

and still no dice.

[gorhill]

Your JSON does not pass validation.

Try:

{ "adminSettings": { "Value": "{ \"userSettings\": {\"colorBlindFriendly\": true } }" } }

[jdsemma]

Duh. :)

I tried that and..... almost success!

The policy is set, according to chrome://policy. The policy value, literally is

{ "userSettings": { "colorBlindFriendly": true }}

However, in uBlock's options, that setting is NOT set to true. It's still false.