ezboot
Automatically configure a Boot2Gecko Device. It's so ez!
This is a command line script for the convenience of developing on B2G such that you need to flash new builds to your device periodically and begin hacking ASAP.
Features:
- Automatically downloads the latest build and flashes it
- Configures WiFi on your device
- Pre-installs apps that you commonly need
- Puts custom prefs on your device
- Easy, intuitive command line
- You can use a config file for everything
- Frictionless convention over configuration
Do you really need this? Probably not!
ezboot
is intended for B2G platform developers.
If you are a B2G app developer you should try the
Firefox OS Simulator first because that will have
better features for you (such as Push To Device).
Requirements:
- Mac or Linux.
- On Mac you might need to install XCode with Command Line Tools from https://developer.apple.com/downloads/
- Windows could be supported but prepare to send patches.
- You must use a build of B2G that has Marionette enabled. More details below.
- Python 2.7 or greater (Python 3 isn't suported yet)
- The pip command to install Python packages
-
adb
needs to be on your$PATH
. Get it from the Android SDK. - Some additional Python modules will be installed as dependencies
Caveats:
- You should not enable the Remote Debugging setting on B2G when Marionette is enabled. This will create conflicting debugger listeners. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=764913 for info.
Contents:
Install
You need pip to install ezboot. For B2G versions 1.2 and greater, install the current version:
pip install ezboot
For older B2G versions, install the 1.0 version:
pip install ezboot1
The installation process pulls in some dependencies so you may want to
use a common virtualenv and adjust your $PATH
so you can
use ezboot
for any project,
e.g. /path/to/.virtualenvs/ezboot/bin
.
WARNING: If you want to run both ezboot1
and ezboot
on your system
you must install each within a virtualenv.
To install from source:
git clone git://github.com/kumar303/ezboot.git cd ezboot python setup.py develop
Source
The source is available at https://github.com/kumar303/ezboot/
Marionette
For this script to work you must flash your device with a B2G build that has Marionette enabled. The flash command will do that for you. Read this if you want to build various flavors of B2G with Marionette support yourself.
First Timers
You'll try anything at least once, right? The very first time you run
ezboot flash
you probably need to enable Remote Debugging first by
digging into
Settings > Device Information > More Information > Developer.
Otherwise, adb
won't be able to connect.
This only applies if you had flashed with a B2G build that did not have
Marionette enabled.
If you've never installed B2G at all then you need to enable debugger
connections on Android.
Usage
Run this for a quick reference:
ezboot --help
Using Ezboot To Work With Marketplace Payments
To whet your appetite, here is a full example of ezboot's intended use. This documentation shows you how to make a local config file and use ezboot to quickly prepare a B2G device for hacking on the Firefox Marketplace payments system.
Config file
You can set defaults for all argument values by creating an
ezboot.ini
file in the working directory. Make a section
for each sub command with long argument names as keys.
For example:
[setup] wifi_ssid = mywifi wifi_key = WPA-PSK wifi_pass = my secure password with spaces apps = https://marketplace-dev.allizom.org/manifest.webapp https://marketplace.allizom.org/manifest.webapp [flash] flash_user = ... flash_pass = ...
Using a config file greatly simplifies ezboot because you won't have to set commonly used option values.
Commands
bind
This binds a hostname on your B2G device to the local IP address of the workstation that you are running ezboot from. Reference:
ezboot bind --help
The use case here is that you want to connect to http://fireplace.local or some URL on your phone and access a development server running at http://0.0.0.0:80/ on your workstation.
If you have trouble connecting make sure your mobile device is on the same network (you probably need WiFi for that) and that your development server is bound to your public IP. If it's a Django app, make sure you start with something like this:
python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
because the default, such as:
python manage.py runserver localhost:8000
will not bind to your public IP.
If you have multiple interfaces ezboot bind will show you the possibilities so you can choose one from the list of options.
Should you want to always use a specific interface then you can use:
ezboot bind --bind_int=...
Alternatively if you want to set a specific IP you can do so like this:
ezboot bind --bind_ip=...
and the same for host:
ezboot bind --bind_host=...
desktop
This downloads a fresh desktop B2G build and installs it for use. Here is a full reference:
ezboot desktop --help
With the default args it will grab the latest B2G18 build. If you need to install a different build just set the platform specific URL. For example, if you are on a Mac and you want to get 1.0.1, set this:
ezboot desktop --mac64-url http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/b2g/nightly/latest-mozilla-b2g18_v1_0_1/b2g-18.0.multi.mac64.dmg
dl
This downloads a device build and saves the Zip file to a custom directory.
The build will not be flashed to a
device and any subsequent reflash
command will not attempt to use
it. This is just a convenient way to grab a build without logging in;
the same user/pass options from flash
apply here.
Here is a full reference:
ezboot dl --help
You can set a custom location with ezboot dl --location=...
.
By default it will save builds to ~/Downloads
.
flash
This downloads a device build and flashes it to your device. Here is a full reference:
ezboot flash --help
You will have to specify which device you want to flash since every device has a separate build that must be used to flash it. You can do that like so:
ezboot flash --flash_device unagi
or, if you have the URL of your build, then do it like so:
ezboot flash --flash_url http://pvtbuilds.mozilla.org/...
You can also set these in your ezboot.ini
config file:
[flash] flash_device = unagi/inari
or:
[flash] flash_url = http://pvtbuilds.mozilla.org/...
Note, that if you set both flash_url
and flash_device
, the value
provided for flash_url
will override the default URL for the device
value you have provided. Please refer to the full reference.
Rest of the defaults will probably work for you. If you don't want
to be prompted for your username/password each time, you can save
them in an ezboot.ini
config file:
[flash] flash_user = the_user flash_pass = secret$password
Captain Obvious says don't commit your password to a public repo.
http
This restarts your phone with HTTP logging temporarily enabled. Here is the full reference:
ezboot http --help
This runs B2G on the device until you interrupt it (^C). After you're finished the console will tell you where to find a log of all HTTP requests/responses. When you view the file it might warn you that it has binary content but that's typically just at the beginning of the file. Keep paging.
install
Install an app from the Firefox Marketplace.
ezboot install --help
This is an alternative to specifying manifest URLs in setup
and will let
you install an app by name. Example:
ezboot install --app 'Sliding Puzzle' --browser
install_mkt
Install a pre-production version of the packaged Marketplace app.
This requires you to run mkt_certs
first.
ezboot install_mkt --help
Example:
ezboot install_mkt --dev
Because some bootstrapping is necessary this will install the app from your B2G browser.
kill
This kills all running apps which may be useful when you need to reload styles, js or other assets.
ezboot kill --help
The recss
command might be faster.
login
Make sure a Persona screen is open on the device then type
ezboot login
. Here is a reference:
ezboot login --help
This lets you type the username / password to a new Persona account from your nice desktop keyboard instead of the device keypad. In a real world situation this wouldn't be as annoying since Persona remembers who you are but for development you'll be typing new accounts all the time for testing.
mkt_certs
This pushes the cert files to your device so that you can install the Marketplace packaged app (dev version) with elevated privileges and install signed apps from that Marketplace. You obviously don't need this if you simply want to use the production version of Marketplace that is pre-installed on device.
ezboot mkt_certs --help
Ask someone for a cert file (see this issue), download it, and unzip it. You can install certs for the Marketplace dev packaged app like this:
ezboot mkt_certs --dev --certs_path ~/Downloads/certdb.tmp/
This command requires a device id unless you are using a unagi. You can configure this like so:
[flash] flash_device = <device> flash_device_id = <whatever is reported by adb devices>
If you're using an inari or if the device identifier looks like a mac address it
will likely fail. If you have problems, run: adb devices -l
and use
the string prefixed with usb:
as the flash_device_id
. For example:
ezboot mkt_certs --flash_device_id 'usb:1D111300' --dev --certs_path ~/Downloads/certdb.tmp/
reflash
This flashes the last downloaded build without downloading a new one. This is an easy way to clear cookies and other saved artifacts on device.
ezboot reflash --help
See the flash
command for more info.
recss
This reloads all stylesheets on the current frame. More info:
ezboot recss --help
setup
This sets up your flashed device for usage. Here is the full reference:
ezboot setup --help
It can do the following:
- configure WiFi
- pre-install some apps
- put custom prefs on the device
The --apps
argument takes multiple values. In a config file, add them
one per line in an ezboot.ini
config file like this:
[setup] apps = https://marketplace-dev.allizom.org/manifest.webapp https://marketplace.allizom.org/manifest.webapp wifi_ssid = ... wifi_key = WPA-PSK wifi_pass = ...
By convention, if you put a custom prefs file in ./ezboot/custom-prefs.js
where dot is the working directory then it will be pushed to
/data/local/user.js
on the device. Any existing custom prefs are not
preserved.
Why?
While automated functional tests are fantastic I also want to make sure developers are testing their changes manually on real devices with the latest builds. It's a pain to maintain a development device yourself so this created an itch that had to be scratched. There is plenty of prior art on B2G scripts but each had different goals or they were done with cryptic bash magic.