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Rolling Out Mozilla in an Organization?

Posted by Cliff on from the bringing-in-the-400-lb-lizard dept.

jdclucidly asks: "I am a network administrator for a small non-profit (about 50 employees). I would like to roll Mozilla 1.2.1 out to all of our desktops. We don't have a single ghost image because the computers on site are too varied. Yes, I did my Googling. The source for the installer is just huge and mind boggling. Is there something like a Mozilla Administration Kit that will generate custom Mozilla installers? If not, would people on Slashdot be interested in starting a new project to make such a kit?" If you were going to deploy a "branded" version of Mozilla, company-wide, how would you do it, especially if you had to worry about a mixed OS environment?

"Here's what I want to do:

  • Install everything but Quality Feedback Agent
  • Set Mozilla as the default browser
  • Disable 'Open Unrequested Windows' (kill pop-ups)
  • Install Elveraldo's Crystal-Classic theme as default
  • Set Google as the default search engine
  • Set 'Georgia' as the default Serif font for Western and Unicode
  • Enable HTTP Pipelining
  • Enable FIPS internal cryptography
  • Set toolbar to 'Pictures only'
  • Set Home Page to my organization's intranet site
  • Set start page to 'Blank page'
  • Disable 'Hide the tab bar'
  • Enable Middle-click for new tab
  • Enable control+enter for new tab
  • Default downloads to 'open a progress dialog'
  • Disable Javascript and Plugins for Mail & News
  • Enable quicklaunch
  • Create an additional shortcut on the desktop and in quicklaunch that uses chrome/icons/mailnew.ico as it's source and points to 'mozilla.exe -mail'
As you can imagine, doing this on 50 computers (and making sure I got each of these) would be quite tedious. Are, there others out there that want to do the same thing. I checked the Mozilla newgroups. I checked the CCK Project page at Mozilla.org -- it appears to be pretty inactive. I checked out the Netscape 7 CCK, which is pretty robust but doesn't do everything I want and it's proprietary -- plus, I don't want all the NS7 proprietary crap on my network.

I installed Mozilla on my machine using the stub installer and had it save all of the .XPI components to a folder. I went in and extracted the .XPI's and examined them. It seems possible to do these things but not without learning XUL, JavaScript, XML and Mozilla.org's own stuffings -- not to mention setting up a Visual C++/Cygwin compiling farm for every next Mozilla release. Can I:
  • Directly modify the defaults/prefs/all.js file to incorporate my preference defaults above and then recompress the .XPI?
  • Add to the installer Crystal-Classic.jar somehow? Where are those changes made?
  • Make the installer NOT allow the user to change any of this?
  • Make the installer create the above mentioned shortcut?"

3 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dear Sir or Madam by trans_err · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I regret to inform you that other then being a complete idiot, you were not first.

    --

    transmission_err

  2. Did someone say... by MattCohn.com · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    OPERA?!?! Here's another chance to plug my favorate browser...

    The Opera Composer allows sysadmins such as yourself to make a custom installer with almost all the features you wanted. That, and you get pretty much everything you need with the newest Opera 7 (MUCH better CSS and general everything complience).

    Try it out, you might just want Opera instead of Mozilla.

  3. Re:NFC Champsionship Game Thread by 1nfern0 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    just call me before you do, i gotta watch. although im 20 bucks short of a bus ticket now. thanks a lot mr throw-an-interception-after-the-only-productive-dr ive-of -the-game-when-you-really-needed-it mcnabb