Let's talk about chrome about salt-winrepo HOT 6 CLOSED

I'm still not sure what I'm doing with this so...
Notes:

• The comment in the chrome sls contains a bad link, which was my misunderstanding
• The URL for the package does work
• The URL goes to enterprise edition (this has it's own caveats)
• The URL goes to enterprise (32b) edition (although the installer may contain both -- I'm not sure)
• There is a URL for 64 bit enterprise version, but we're not using it. Simply append "64" to the current URL.
• Enterprise edition does not support chrome release channels mentioned above
• Homebrew cask allows all release channels to be accessed
• Release channel installers for windows are accessed through a very opaque download link
• Release channel installers for windows are all EXE, although I did manage to get standalone versions, which aren't easily exposed by the links above.
• I'm not sure what the silent arguments are for the release channel exe installers. A few very old stack overflow answers have indicated /silent /install would work.
• If those arguments work, I'm not sure what the uninstall arguments are.

I'll probably come back and evaluate this. I tend to like the enterprise msi, and from a salt-master standpoint it's pretty much ideal. I'm bummed a bit that I can't get release channels, but I'm trying to make it work with these exe's. I'll need to sit down and test some commands on my windows box.

from salt-winrepo.

@DavidJFelix thanks for the feedback, there is a lot there, so let's give some feedback point by point and see where it leads.

• The comment in the chrome sls contains a bad link, which was my misunderstanding
  OK I'll have a look and correct that, thanks for reporting it.
• The URL for the package does work
  Glad it works for you too.
• The URL goes to enterprise edition (this has it's own caveats)
  can you elaborate what those caveats are?
• The URL goes to enterprise (32b) edition (although the installer may contain both -- I'm not sure)
  do you 'need' a 64-bit browser? (why and what for?)
• There is a URL for 64 bit enterprise version, but we're not using it. Simply append "64" to the current URL.
  ok, can do, hopefully the answer to the above will help prioritise this. A question to you on this. Is this a package where you think one should always (and with no choice left) get eithr the 32bit or 64bit version according to the underlying Win OS, or shoudl there be a 'choice'? The question behind the question is, if I should let the jinja2 template code decide whether to install 32bit or 64bit, or if I should split it into two winrepo sls pkg files one with _86 and one with _x64 appended? Like with the MS VC++ runtimes, or the perl,python,ruby dev environments, where people definitly want/need a choice as to which bitness to install?
• Enterprise edition does not support chrome release channels mentioned above
  ok, is that a problem ?
• Homebrew cask allows all release channels to be accessed
  that might wellbe so, but this is windows we are talking about. ;-)
• Release channel installers for windows are accessed through a very opaque download link
  could you document those for me, I could not easily find somehting useful to the winrepo downloader
• Release channel installers for windows are all EXE, although I did manage to get standalone versions, which aren't easily exposed by the links above.

that is not usually a problem

• I'm not sure what the silent arguments are for the release channel exe installers. A few very old stack overflow answers have indicated /silent /install would work.

I could try those out and probably find the right or working ones

• If those arguments work, I'm not sure what the uninstall arguments are.

That is usually no problem at all to find on windows, once it is installed. they are always in the registry.

I'll probably come back and evaluate this. I tend to like the enterprise msi, and from a salt-master standpoint it's pretty much ideal.

I do agree with this myself, so barring any major revelations about caveats above this might still be the way to go for a salt master deployment, what do you think?

I'm bummed a bit that I can't get release channels, but I'm trying to make it work with these exe's. I'll need to sit down and test some commands on my windows box.

Is this release channel something, you can switch to as part of a config change that is manageable even once a versions is installed, using salt states? Trying to break the "install" part away from the "config" part?

from salt-winrepo.

(Late post, I'll probably follow up at a normal hour with more detail).

Not having release channels can be a problem for many web developers - not all versions of a browser are equal. It can be difficult to stay ahead of the curve metaphorically when you're not literally ahead of the curve using a browser with features that are not yet in the stable version. With new browser support for whatever new web "standard" coming out frequently (HTML5 video formats, some new CSS selector, etc) I encounter a lot of developers running Firefox developer edition or chrome beta. This allows them to see any issues their site has before their users do, or possibly get some lead time on the next new thing.

more on the rest later. Just trying to describe why stable may not be good enough.

from salt-winrepo.

Here's a sample standalone installer link:

https://dl.google.com/tag/s/lang%3Den%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DGoogle%2520Chrome%26needsadmin%3Dtrue%26ap%3Dx64-stable/update2/installers/ChromeStandaloneSetup64.exe

Google's download server is doing something funky with tags behind the scenes. Anyways, the url is pretty easy once you deconstruct the percent encodings to something that looks more like get-parameters.

As you can see, the ap=x64-stable (ap%3Dx64-stable) is where the release channel and bit-ness are specified. There are some other options for language, install at system level (needsadmin) and send google usage stats (usagestats=0).

So using that as a model, mutate it and get:

beta, 32 bit:

https://dl.google.com/tag/s/lang%3Den%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DGoogle%2520Chrome%26needsadmin%3Dtrue%26ap%3Dx86-beta/update2/installers/ChromeStandaloneSetup.exe

dev, 64 bit:

https://dl.google.com/tag/s/lang%3Den%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DGoogle%2520Chrome%26needsadmin%3Dtrue%26ap%3Dx64-dev/update2/installers/ChromeStandaloneSetup64.exe

canary, 64 bit:

https://dl.google.com/tag/s/lang%3Den%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DGoogle%2520Chrome%26needsadmin%3Dtrue%26ap%3Dx64-canary/update2/installers/ChromeStandaloneSetup64.exe

I'm only really changing a few values. I'm not sure what the others do, but it seems to successfully download... something. I'm not sure it's right (on mac now) but I know when I type wildly wrong things in the tags, I don't get downloads, so at least I'm within some threshold.

from salt-winrepo.

regarding bitness: I'm of the camp that you should always use 64bit when possible. I'm not sure if chrome installer does this automatically or not. Google claims the 64bit client crashes less frequently so I'd assume they would try to install it if they could. With 64 bit you get access to high entropy ASLR on windows 8.1+, which is my biggest reason for backing it. You probably won't hit the RAM limit in chrome though... especially since it uses additional processes per tab.

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/23638/what-is-hiaslr

Browsers are of the software which is most heavily targeted for exploitation. Having HiASLR is a good idea.

from salt-winrepo.

@TheBigBear awake now. So the big caveat is that if a user wants chrome beta, they can't get chrome beta. There are reasons to want chrome beta. Right now I have enterprise chrome and it's at release 43. I think this is a few versions behind because my sysadmins haven't gotten to 45 yet, but here's the difference in 43 and 46 (what would have been dev):

http://caniuse.com/#compare=chrome+43,chrome+46

What it doesn't mention is chrome NPAPI is no longer valid in 46 (this is a big deal if I wrote a chrome extension using NPAPI) and CSS resource hints, word breaks and arrow functions don't exist in my version.

It sounds inconsequential, but really I'm modeling what I provide based on what people want. People want chrome beta around me, I'm trying to appease them in windows like brew does in osx and linux repos can do.

That's my best sell on caveats.

from salt-winrepo.