The AMO Validator is a tool designed to scan Mozilla add-on packages for problems such as security vulnerabilities, exploits, spamware and badware, and lots of other gunk. By using a combination of various techniques and detection mechanisms, the validator is capable of being both efficient as well as thorough.
Python Libraries:
- argparse
- cssutils
- rdflib
- fastchardet
Python Libraries for Testing:
- nose
- coverage
You can install everything you need for running and testing with
pip install -r requirements.txt
The validator may require some submodules to work. Make sure to run
git clone --recursive git://github.com/mozilla/amo-validator.git
so that you get all of the goodies inside.
A working copy of Spidermonkey (debug or non-debug is fine) is required. The version installed must include support for the Parser API. At the time of this writing the version of Spidermonkey included with major package managers does not yet include the Parser API.
How do you know if your js binary has the Parser API? Run this:
js -e 'Reflect;'
There should be no error output.
The best way to make sure you install the right Spidermonkey is to clone the mozilla-central repo or download the tip (which is faster). Then build it from source like this:
cd mozilla-central cd js/src autoconf2.13 ./configure make sudo cp dist/bin/js /usr/local/bin/js
You must use autoconf at exactly 2.13 or else it won't work. If you're using brew on Mac OS X you can get autoconf2.13 with this:
brew install https://gist.github.com/raw/765545/c87a75f2cf9e26c153970522e227f1c1cf63fb81/autoconf213.rb
If you don't want to put the js executable in your $PATH or you want it
in a custom path, you can define it as $SPIDERMONKEY_INSTALLATION in
your environment.
Run the validator as follows
python addon-validator <path to xpi> [-t <expected type>] [-o <output type>] [-v] [--boring] [--selfhosted] [--determined]
The path to the XPI should point to an XPI file.
| -t | The type that you expect your add-on to be detected as. The list of types is listed below. |
| -o | The type of output to generate. Types are listed below. |
| -v | Enable verbose mode. Extra information will be displayed in
verbose mode, namely notices (informational messages),
Jetpack information if available, extra error info (like
contexts, file data, etc.), and error descriptions. This
only applies to -o text. |
| --selfhosted | Disables messages that are specific to add-ons hosted on AMO. |
| --boring | Disables colorful shell output. |
| --determined | Continue validating the remaining tiers of an add-on if one tier has failed. Certain high-tiered tests may inadvertently fail when this option is enabled for badly malformed add-ons. |
| --target-appversion | |
Accepts a JSON string containing an object whose keys
are GUIDs and values are lists of version strings. In the
targetApplication and compatibility tests, the add-on's
predefined <em:targetApplication> values will be
overridden if its GUIDs match thoes from the JSON. E.g.:
{"{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}": "5.*"} | |
| --for-appversions | |
Accepts a JSON string containing an object whose keys are
GUIDs and values are lists of version strings. If this
list is specified, non-inlinecompatibility tests will only
be run if they specifically target the applications and
veresions in this parameter. E.g.:
{"{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}": ["6.*"]} | |
The expected type should be one of the following values:
- any (default)
- Accepts any extension
- extension
- Accepts only extensions
- theme
- Accepts only themes
- dictionary
- Accepts only dictionaries
- languagepack
- Accepts only language packs
- search
- Accepts only OpenSearch XML files (unpackaged)
- multi
- Accepts only multi-item XPI packages
Specifying an expected type will throw an error if the validator does not detect that particular type when scanning. All addon type detection mechanisms are used to make this determination.
The output type may be either of the following:
- text (default)
- Outputs a textual summary of the addo-on analysis. Supports verbose mode.
- json
- Outputs a JSON snippet representing a full summary of the add-on analysis.
In text output mode, output is structured in the format of one
message per line. The messages are prefixed by their priority level
(i.e.: "Warning: This is the message").
At the head of the text output is a block describing what the add-on type was determined to be.
In JSON output mode, output is formatted as a JSON snippet
containing all messages. The format for the JSON output is that of the
sample document below.
{
"detected_type": "extension",
"errors": 2,
"warnings": 1,
"notices": 1,
"success": false,
"compatibility_summary": {
"errors": 1,
"warnings": 0,
"notices": 0
},
"ending_tier": 4,
"message_tree": {
"module": {
"function": {
"error": {
"__messages": ["123456789"],
"__errors": 1,
"__warnings": 0,
"__notices": 0
},
"__messages": [],
"__errors": 1,
"__warnings": 0,
"__notices": 0
},
"__messages": [],
"__errors": 1,
"__warnings": 0,
"__notices": 0
},
"__messages": [],
"__errors": 1,
"__warnings": 0,
"__notices": 0
},
"messages": [
{
"uid": "123456789",
"id": ["module", "function", "error"],
"type": "error",
"message": "This is the error message text.",
"description": ["Description of the error message.",
"Additional description text"],
"file": ["chrome/foo.jar", "bar/zap.js"],
"line": 12,
"column": 50,
"context: [
" if(foo = bar())",
" an_error_is_somewhere_on_this_line.prototy.eval("whatever");",
null
],
"compatibility_type": "error",
"for_appversions": {
"{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}": ["5.0a2", "6.0a1"]
},
"tier": 2
}
],
"metadata": {
"name": "Best Add-on Evar",
"version": "9000",
"guid": "foo@bar.com"
}
}
The message_tree element to the document above contains a series of
JavaScript objects organized into a tree structure. The key of each element in
the tree is the the name of each successive part of the validator that
generated a particular message or set of messages (increasing in specificity as
the depth of the tree increases). Each tree element also includes a series of
additional nodes which provide extra information:
__errors - number - The number of errors generated in this node __warnings - number - The number of warnings generated in this node __notices - number - The number of messages generated in this node __messages - list - A list of UIDs from messages in the `messages` node
When a subpackage exists, an angle bracket will delimit the subpackage name and the message text.
If no applicable file is available (i.e.: when a file is missing), the
file value will be empty. If a file value is available within a
subpackage, then the file attribute will be a list containing the
name of the outermost subpackage's name, followed by each successive
concentric subpackage's name, followed by the name of the file that the
message was generated in. If no applicable file is available within a
subpackage, the file attribute is identical, except the last element
of the list in the file attribute is an empty string.
For instance, this tree would generate the following messages:
package_to_test.xpi
|
|-install.rdf
|-chrome.manifest
|-subpackage.xpi
| |
| |-subsubpackage.xpi
| |
| |-chrome.manifest
| |-install.rdf
|
|-subpackage.jar
|
|-install.rdf
{
"type": "notice",
"message": "<em:type> not found in install.rdf",
"description": " ... ",
"file": "install.rdf",
"line": 0
},
{
"type": "error",
"message": "Invalid chrome.manifest subject: override",
"description": " ... ",
"file": "chrome.manifest",
"line": 7
},
{
"type": "error",
"message": "subpackage.xpi > install.rdf missing from theme",
"description": " ... ",
"file": ["subpackage.xpi", ""],
"line": 0
},
{
"type": "error",
"message": "subpackage.xpi > subsubpackage.xpi > Invalid chrome.manifest subject: sytle",
"description": " ... ",
"file": ["subpackage.xpi", "subsubpackage.xpi", "chrome.manifest"],
"line": 5
}
Line numbers are 1-based. Column numbers are 0-based. This can be confusing from a programmatic standpoint, but makes literal sense. "Line one" would obviously refer to the first line of a file.
The context attribute of messages will either be a list or null. Null contexts represent the validator's inability to determine surrounding code. As a list, there will always be three elements. Each element represents a line surrounding the message's location.
The middle element of the context list represents the line of interest. If an element of the context list is null, that line does not exist. For instance, if an error is on the first line of a file, the context might look like:
[
null,
"This is the line with the error",
"This is the second line of the file"
]
The same rule applies for the end of a file and for files with only one line.
Unit tests can be run with
fab test
or, after setting the proper python path:
nosetests
However, to turn run unit tests with code coverage, the appropriate command would be:
nosetests --with-coverage --cover-package=validator --cover-skip=validator.outputhandlers.,validator.main,validator.constants,validator.constants_local --cover-inclusive --cover-tests
Note that in order to use the --cover-skip nose parameter, you must install the included patch for nose's coverage.py plugin:
extras/cover.py
This file should overwrite the standard nose coverage plugin at the appropriate location:
~/.virtualenvs/[virtual environment]/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages/nose/plugins/cover.py /usr/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages/nose/plugins/cover.py
Some regular maintenance needs to be performed on the validator in order to make sure that the results are accurate.
A list of Mozilla <em:targetApplication> values is stored in the
validator/app_versions.json file. This must be updated to include the latest
application versions. This information can be found on AMO:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/pages/appversions/
A list of JS library hashes is kept to allow for whitelisting. This must be regenerated with each new library version. To update:
cd extras mkdir jslibs python jslibfetcher.py python build_whitelist.py jslibs/ # We keep a special hash for testing echo "e96461c6c19608f528b4a3c33a032b697b999b62" >> whitelist_hashes.txt mv whitelist_hashes.txt ../validator/testcases/hashes.txt
To add new libraries to the mix, edit extras/jslibfetcher.py and add the
version number to the appropriate tuple.
In order to maintain Jetpack compatibility, the whitelist hashes need to be regenerated with each successive Jetpack version. To rebuild the hash library, simply run:
cd jetpack ./generate_jp_whitelist.sh
That's it!
With every version of every app that's released, the language pack references need to be updated.
We now have an automated tool to ease this tedious process. It is currently designed to work on OS X with the OS X versions of Mozilla applications, though it could conceivably run on any *NIX platform against the OS X application packages.
To run the tool, first create a new directory: extras/language_controls/
Put the .app packages for each updated product into this directory. Once
this is ready, simply run:
cd extras python update_langpacks.py
That should be it. Note that this tool will fail horribly if any of the teams change the locations that the various language files are stored in.
Also note that this tool should only be run against the en-US versions of these applications.