PSM:UIforSharedDB

User Interface for Shared Database

This is related to the NSS feature for sharing a single certificate+keys+trust-settings database between multiple applications, e.g. Firefox and Thunderbird. You can read about the NSS level details at NSS_Shared_DB

While the feature works very well at the NSS level already, we have an important, yet unresolved issue: We need application level support for merging existing databases from existing user profiles, making sure that users won't loose their items stored in the separate database when we migrate them to the new shared database.

This page contains ideas about how to implement the application level support, that should be done in the core of the Mozilla platform, so any application can make use of the feature (Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, etc.)

Bob Relyea said "Most merges will happen automatically when we call updatemerge()." Most, but not all.

A problem comes up when a user has different master passwords set on the individual old profiles.

Proposal:

• Enhance the existing security preferences in the application, the pref pane that can be reached (in firefox) using advanced/encryption.
  • At a future point this should become more obvious to find?
• Introduce a new configuration option to enable the shared DB feature, next to our existing options (like SSL3/TLS1/client auth/cert manager/etc.).
• The option could be a radio button giving the following choices:
  • My certificates, certificate trust, private keys and settings for security devices are:
    • x used only by Firefox and stored in the profile folder
    • o stored in a folder that is shared between Firefox and other Mozilla/NSS applications
• The path of the "shared folder" will be recorded in the profile. By default, it will be the user's default folder for shared database (platform dependent). It will be a hidden pref that power users can change.)