Firefox installation fails for older versions

[Bender250]

Hi,

The script ./scripts/install-firefox.sh for OpenWPM v0.12.0 tries to download Firefox from this link: https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/api/index/v1/task/gecko.v2.mozilla-release.revision.bd5d1f49975deb730064a16b3079edb53c4a5f84.firefox.linux64-add-on-devel/artifacts/public/build/target.tar.bz2. The problem with this link is that Firefox seems to remove old tags from https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/gecko.v2.mozilla-release.revision. I checked older tags and they are also unavailable, newer tags from v0.14.0 (FIREFOX_86_0_1_RELEASE) are available.

I did not manage to find any alternative repository with these FF builds. I understand that the issue is not on your side, but with the versioning it seems that you want to keep research with older versions reproducible. What about mirroring builds of the few fixed releases that made it into a stable OpenWPM version? It might resolve the comment in the beginning of ./scripts/install-firefox.sh.

Additional question regarding versioning. Do you suggest to clone the newest version of OpenWPM (git submodule or by some script that downloads OpenWPM) to projects that build upon it? At the moment, we were including the specific version and edited it, which caused this issue. Long term maintainable solution is I guess not touching included OpenWPM code and extending/monkey patching it within our files.

Thanks! I appreciate your work on this project, maintaining a research tool is a tough task.

[vringar]

Hi,

thanks for reporting this issue.
Keeping old research reproducible seems like something we should aim for.
I'm thinking about creating a repo that just contains the tar.gz files. This way we are in control of the binaries.

I think, we'd still need to manually copy the tars over to that repo, so the comment would remain relevant.

Iirc other people keep the OpenWPM code and their code separated by using a git submodule. Tbh I always assumed that people would just check out one version and build on top of it (as you apparently have done) and never upgrade.
We should provide a better story here.
Ever since #743 and #753 got released in v0.14.0, keeping your code and the OpenWPM code separate should be a lot easier, however we should explicitly encourage that.
For now, please try using a git submodule and let me know what kind of problems you run into.

Thank you for your appreciation!

[Bender250]

I'm thinking about creating a repo that just contains the tar.gz files. This way we are in control of the binaries.

I was thinking exactly that, it would help keeping research reproducible! And you are right that the comment in install-firefox.sh remains relevant, you will need to back-up the tar file from somewhere in the first place.

For now, please try using a git submodule and let me know what kind of problems you run into.

Given how much changed since v0.12.0, I will just get an old Firefox release from backups to do the changes that I needed before Christmas. But when I find more spare time, I will update our whole crawler to the newest OpenWPM release included as a submodule. So I can tell after New Year if I run into some problems.