weave-minimal 0.15.1

lightweight firefox weave/sync server

This is a lightweight implementation of Mozillas’ User API v1.0 and Storage API v1.1 without LDAP, MySQL, Redis etc. overhead. It is multi users capable and depends only on werkzeug.

Setup and Configuration

You need python ≥ 2.5. See weave-minimal --help for a list of parameters including a short description.

$ easy_install -U weave-minimal
$ weave-minimal &
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:8080/

You can also use gunicorn and the init.d system to run this service as a daemon with invoke-rc.d weave-minimal start:

#!/bin/sh
#
# save to /etc/init.d/weave-minimal

NAME=weave-minimal
CHDIR=/path/to/weave-minimal/
USER=weave
CMD=/usr/local/bin/gunicorn
DAEMON_OPTS="-b 127.0.0.1:8014 weave:make_app()"

case $1 in
    start)
    echo -n "Starting $NAME: "
    start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid --chdir $CHDIR \
    --chuid $USER --make-pidfile --background --exec $CMD \
    -- $DAEMON_OPTS || true
    echo "$NAME."
       ;;
stop)  start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid
       ;;
esac

Setting up Firefox

0. Migrate from the official servers: write down your mail address and sync key (you can reset your password anyway) and unlink your client. If you want to keep the previous sync key, enter the key in the advanced settings.

1. Create a new account in the sync preferences. Choose a valid mail address and password and enter the custom url into the server location (leave the trailing slash!). If you get an error, check the SSL certificate first.

2. If no errors come up, click continue and wait a minute. If you sync tabs, quit, re-open and manually sync otherwise you’ll get an empty tab list.

3. Connect other clients is as easy as with the mozilla servers (the client actually uses mozilla’s servers for this): click I already have an account and write the three codes into an already linked browser using Pair Device. Optionally you can use the manual prodecure but the you have to enter your sync key by hand.

4. If you have connected your clients, you can close the registration by setting ENABLE_REGISTER to False in weave/minimal/controllers/user.py at the very top.

Q: Is this implementation standard compliant? A: Almost. It works perfectly for me.

Q: Is it compatible with the latest version of Firefox? A: Most times. Compatibility is explicitly denoted as version tag.

Q: Can I use a custom certificate for HTTPS? A: Yes, but import the CA or visit the url before you enable syncing. Firefox will show you a misleading error “invalid url” if you did not accept this cert before!

Q: It does not sync!?1 A: Did u try turning it off and on again? Your browser, not the server!

Using a Custom Username

Mozilla assumes, you’re using their services, therefore you can not enter a non-valid email-address and Firefox will prevent you from doing this. But there’s an alternate way:

Instead of entering all your details into the first screen of “Firefox Sync Setup” you click on “I already have a Firefox Sync Account”. Before you can go to the next step, you have to set up a user account in weave.

$ weave-minimal --register bob:secret
[info] database for `bob` created at `.data/bob.e5e9fa1ba31ecd1a`

Now you can continue your Firefox Sync Setup and click “I don’t have the device with me” and enter your username, password, “use custom server” -> url and secret passphrase. That’s all.

Webserver Configuration

using lighttpd and mod_proxy

To run weave-minimal using lighttpd and mod_proxy you need to pass an extra argument to weave on startup, called --prefix. E.g. if you host weave under /weave/, you have at least this basic configuration:

$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/weave/" {
    proxy.server = ("" =>
       (("host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8080)))
}

Now, you have to run weave using nohup weave-minimal --prefix=/weave & to let weave-minimal recognize that it is served on this specific sub-uri. (This is an issue of lighttpd itself).

nginx

Run weave via nohup weave-minimal & (or inside a screen) and add the following to your nginx.conf:

location ^~ /weave/ {
    proxy_set_header        Host $host;
    proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header        X-Scheme $scheme;
    proxy_set_header        X-Script-Name /weave;
    proxy_pass              http://127.0.0.1:8080;
}