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=Overview=
=Overview=


Mozilla Cloud Services (MCS) requires client-side portions for Firefox OS, and Firefox on Android (Fennec) that will need to be delivered on a separate release schedule from the product itself. Firefox Mobile Services (FMS) is a component that will run in Firefox OS as a special component that runs independently of FxOS's parent loop but supplies a Preferences panel and Mobile Service API's that correspond to Mozilla Cloud Service API's.
This project proposal is to provide a way for Mozilla Cloud Services to
have an established way to push new services out (without bogging down
FxOS releases) to increase the service-based capabilities of FxOS for
app developers and address urgent security holes that may occur. It
could be considered similar in spirit to Google Mobile Services on
Android (except everything including the server-side service components
are completely open-sourced).


This project proposal is to provide a way for Mozilla Cloud Services to have an established way to push new services out (without bogging down FxOS releases) to increase the service-based capabilities of FxOS for app developers. It could be considered similar in spirit to Google Mobile Services on Android (except everything including the server-side service components are completely open-sourced).
The initial focus will be on creating the FMS API's for FxOS which can
integrate with the Preferences panel, and a small set of Javascript
modules and framework for running them in on Firefox OS. At a later
point a similar component with inter-process communication for Android
should be created to expose similar functionality to web applications
installed on Android devices.


The initial focus will be on creating the FMS component which integrates with the Preferences panel, and the Service Workers that run each client-side service that interacts with MCS for FxOS devices. At a later point a similar component with inter-process communication for Android should be created to expose similar functionality to web applications installed on Android devices.
=Background=


=Background=
Currently Mozilla Cloud Services has landed the client-side code for
projects such as Sync by integrating client-side code in the main code-
base (Firefox, Fennec, etc). If/when security problems or exploits were
found requiring an urgent fix Mozilla would issue a 'chem spill'
emergency release of the project. This is a feasible approach (though
labor intensive as it requires a complete release of the project)
because Mozilla controls the release and distribution of Firefox for
desktop and mobile devices. This approach is not viable for client-side
services in Firefox OS because OEM's control the phone updates, not
Mozilla or the users.


Currently the only way to integrate client-side code to handle communication with MCS requires landing code in large code-bases that are typically focused on other platform capabilities and bugs. MCS does not have B2G device developers under it, therefore landing code in B2G or Fennec is difficult and done in an ad-hoc manner for each task as it arises.
An additional constraint is that Cloud Services has plans to increase
the service-based feature-set of Firefox OS (to attempt to match parity
on some level with iOS/Android) which requires a much shorter release
cycle than Firefox OS currently has. Being able to deploy new API's and
update existing ones for new services quickly is important.


The two first projects at Cloud Services that added such code on the Firefox OS platform  
The two first projects at Cloud Services that added such code on the Firefox OS platform  
are [https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/SimplePush SimplePush] and [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox-Accounts Firefox Account]
are [https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/SimplePush SimplePush] and [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox-Accounts Firefox Account]


We're expecting that more projects will do the same in the future, and this wiki page describes  
We're expecting that more projects (Presence) will do the same in the
the biggest problems that were encountered and how we can make this integration work faster &  
future, and this wiki page describes the biggest problems that were
easier for every one.
encountered and how we can make this integration work faster & easier
for every one.
 
= Features =
 
Several features that are needed for client-side components that include a
Mozilla Cloud Service:
 
* A new app in Gaia for Cloud Services preferences/settings
* Provide a Javascript DOM API namespace available to applications for Mozilla Cloud Services
* Run a background service (SimplePush has an agent that holds open a connection)
* Spawn a FxOS application (Push wakes applications to process notifications)


=Use Cases=
=Use Cases=
Note: Cloud Service Channel refers to a hypothetical future channel between devices and Mozilla/Telco's/etc. that multiple Cloud Services can use in addition to SimplePush.


== Simple Push ==
== Simple Push ==
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== Firefox Account Service ==  
== Firefox Account Service ==  


XXX ?
* DOM API's to get auth tokens


== Presence Service ==
== Presence Service ==


XXX
* Background service that runs with the Cloud Service Channel
* Sends/receives data over the Cloud Service Channel
* DOM API's to register for LiveNotification events


=Firefox OS Integration=
== Loop (old Talkilla) ==
 
* Ability to see if friends want to receive calls
* Ability to send Tokbox tokens through LiveNotifications to avoid storage of tokens in cloud storage
 
= Firefox OS Integration =


Adding features in Firefox OS can be done at several levels:
Adding features in Firefox OS can be done at several levels:
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* developing in the core is very hard for people outside the FFOS team because it's a moving target. It involves a lot of boiler plate code and knowledge, and is not about coding the web anymore (xpcom anyone? JSM?)
* developing in the core is very hard for people outside the FFOS team because it's a moving target. It involves a lot of boiler plate code and knowledge, and is not about coding the web anymore (xpcom anyone? JSM?)


=Proposal: Service Workers=
= Proposal: Firefox Mobile Services =
 
We are proposing several parts that will be added to Firefox OS to ease development of client-side components that talk to Mozilla Cloud Services.
 
1. A 'Cloud Services' app (that will land in Gaia) to allow a user to manage Cloud Service settings such as their Firefox Account, Push Notifications, Presence, and/or any upcoming client-side settings needed for a Cloud Service.
 
2. A background 'Services Thread', launched in the parent process that will manage the Service Channel, do Push/Presence handling, etc.
 
3. A single location with the 'Services Thread' component for specifying DOM API's used to interact with Mozilla Cloud Services.
 
Ideally these three parts can be tied together at some point and updated independently of Firefox OS, though for an initial version that's probably not reasonable as it would require substantially more engineering to bridge the DOM API to a new separate gecko Service Process, and a separate process consumes drastically more memory on the device than a Service Thread would.
 
= Detailed Description =
 
== Background Service Thread / DOM API's ==
 
This component is developed as a separate core JSM in b2g as a Service Thread. New DOM API's backed by Mozilla
Cloud Services are added here. This service thread is launched from the parent process event loop and handles
the Service Channel for the Push/Presence services and other Cloud Services that need to communicate over a single
channel.
 
Development for client-side components to Cloud Services is done here to unify all Cloud Service components in a single
place. A secondary goal is that it may be easier to initially land changes in a component we own, that is reviewed all at
once later before FxOS releases (slight inefficiencies in our thread would not hold up the main event loop).
 
== Cloud Services App ==
 
This component is developed in Gaia, and handles all the preferences for Cloud Services such as Firefox Accounts,
Push Notifications, Presence, etc. It uses privileged DOM API's to change the Cloud Service settings that may need to
trigger the Service Thread do work (indicating a user is offline, etc).
 
Once complete, Mozilla Cloud Services would be the owner of this component and should be able to land code without
increasing the burden on existing B2G module owners.


We propose to add a new kind of worker in Firefox OS: '''Service Workers'''.
= Projects =
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/FirefoxMobileServices/ChannelService Channel Service]


Service Workers are Web Workers that run in their own scope but with full chrome privileges -- like allow IDB, XHR etc
= Open Questions =


Services Workers can be defined in any web application, and are managed by a specialized component in Gecko: the '''Services Manager'''.
== Should Cloud Service DOM API's be standardized? ==


The Services Manager is responsible for the registration and lifecycle of Services Workers
This question should likely be handled at a higher level than this project.


http://blog.ziade.org/serviceworker.jpg
At the moment though, features are landing in FxOS with moz* vendor prefixes (mozPush, mozId, etc). To quickly
increase cloud service feature parity with Android/iOS it seems likely that we will need to build more compelling
services that we will deploy before pushing them through a standards track.


XXX
== How can a separate update cycle be handled? ==


=Detailed Description=
Right now, we have the capability to issue special 'chem spill' releases of Firefox on the Desktop and Firefox
for Android (Fennec). For FxOS releases, our OEM partners need to push out new releases. There's nothing to indicate
that they wouldn't quickly push out a release if we indicated it was urgent, but this process could increase in
complexity later.


There's two compelling reasons that a Cloud Services component may be more likely to have urgent issues than
Firefox OS as a whole (which is running the gecko engine that also has security holes found):


==ServiceManager==
* The services we're deploying are brand new, some deploying new uses of crypto that have not seen as many attempts to hack them as existing browser components
* It's possible that a client-side component could cause unforseen non-security related issues at scale.


XXX
An example of the second case would be a type of DDoS that was seen with Firefox Sync on the Desktop. A bug in the
retry logic in the client coupled with losing several Sync service nodes caused massive load similar to a DDoS on
Mozilla Services as clients failed to properly back-off on their retries. This made it substantially harder to restore
service availability.


== What about parity with the desktop browser? ==


==ServiceWorker==
The mobile world thus far is defined by the dominant players, Android, iOS, and to an extent WindowsPhone. The
companies behind them have been adding compelling cloud-based services to their native environments. While some
client-side portions could be standardized (like Push), features like Firefox Accounts, Firefox Sync are not and
would be unlikely to be implemented in Safari/Chrome as they're seen as a competitors service.


XXX
To create compelling features for FxOS, we're focusing first on how to enable that. The final answer will need to be determined by major stake-holders as with the standardization question.


=References=
=References=
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Dump of useful links
Dump of useful links


* [https://github.com/slightlyoff/ServiceWorker a ServiceWorker project on github]
* [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Service_worker_API_reference Social APIS Services Worker]
* [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Service_worker_API_reference Social APIS Services Worker]
* [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.webapi/NFXLBW5A0JU Initial discussion in WebAPI]
* [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.webapi/NFXLBW5A0JU Initial discussion in WebAPI]
* [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.webapps/9UxS0BXZD9M WebAPI micro proposal]
* [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.webapps/9UxS0BXZD9M WebAPI micro proposal]
* [https://etherpad.mozilla.org/WorkerThreadAPIs More Web APIs in the works?]
* [https://etherpad.mozilla.org/WorkerThreadAPIs More Web APIs in the works?]
Jrconlin
Confirmed users
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