[tor-talk] Firefox Portable and Access Denied on Lock File (Windows, x64) (Was: Tor Browser Bundle 3.0alpha1 test builds)

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 6:44 AM, Moritz Bartl <moritz at torservers.net> wrote:
> On 16.06.2013 07:20, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>> In this case, FirefoxPortable should probably be writing its lock file
>> to a temporary directory or the User's application data directory
>
> The idea is not to leave any traces outside the Tor Browser Bundle
> directory.
It appears there are no filesystem writes.

It appears there are some writes occurring to the Windows Registry
tracing back to firefox.exe (if interested). A screen capture of what
I observed is available at http://postimg.org/image/nauudq3dd/.

To trace them under Windows, start Process Monitor
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx) and
add the following filters:

  * "Process Name", "is", "Start Tor Browser.exe", include
  * "Process Name", "is", "tor.exe", include
  * "Process Name", "is", "firefox.exe", include
  * "Operation", "is not", "RegSetValue", exclude

> TBB is not meant to be "installed" into Program Files. I
> wonder what we can do about that. The launcher should probably check for
> sufficient privileges.
Well, I'm not a big fan of access() checks in software due to races.
Plus, they tend to be somewhat complex in Windows - you have to fetch
a DACL and loop over ACLs looking for allow and deny ACEs. Its usually
better and easier to try the operation and then handle the
ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED gracefully.

Also, an install time check may not provide intended results. If a
user installs to Desktop and later drags to Program Files, then the
user will experience the same issue.

Jeff