Deploy customized Firefox to new users

[Eric Bradshaw]

Hi Eric, for the additional info on the behavior of Systemback.  I'll be looking at that soon.  Also the confirmation that /etc/skel is fully respected as the general-purpose tool for propagating files to new users.  It seems like it would probably work for my purposes.

But to raise a few prospective issues: I'm talking about propagating a Firefox setup on a single machine to additional new users.  The skel method would create identically-named profiles for each of those users, which is not what Firefox does in an ordinary new installation.  But that would not be a problem because they would be in different sessions and not know about each other, unless perhaps the user made use of the Firefox Sync feature?  Do cookies use the profile name?

And in the meantime, I found veteran Firefox developer Mike Kaply and the many informative articles that he has generously written.  For instance:
Integrating Add-ons into Firefox
Distribution.ini
Default Preferences Files
Autoconfig Files
Default Profiles

Those articles provide at least two native Firefox methods for each of my goals (propagating settings and also add-ons).

Kaply also recently released CCK2, which replaces the CCK I found was no longer available (from my original post).  I understand CCK2 to be an add-on that provides a front-end for the methods described in his articles like the ones above.

John,

Glad you got *some* use out of what I said, even though I misunderstood the purpose(s) of your question. I have very little experience with different Firefox profiles under the same username, only having done it once. I have a bit more experience with creating different user accounts on the same machine - which, if I understand this time what you are trying to accomplish, is the route I would take.

I set up a "base" user account with the apps that all users would have in common, including Firefox.  I exported the "base"  bookmarks from that and imported the bookmarks into each of the user's Firefoxes. I could have done something similar with the addons (xpi files) too, but I just re-downloaded them for each user. I then added user-specific bookmarks (based on sex and age) to the base bookmarks for each.

Eric
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