ALVINE

Add browsers to profile-sync-daemon on my own

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Profile-sync-daemonとは

Profile-sync-daemon is a script that relocates browser profiles from the drive to the RAM disk. A browser profile is the files that is read/written at runtime, such as browser settings (including bookmarks and extensions), cache, cookies, etc. It is often about 100 MB or more for an ordinary browser.

By using profile-sync-daemon(psd), you will get faster operation and less I/O to the SSD (that makes SSD live longer!).

As you can see from the high praise on the Arch wiki, it was created by one of the Arch Linux developer, so if you are using an Arch distribution, there is no reason not to use it. Of course, official packages are available for many major distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Gentoo, in addition to Arch.

How to use

Arch can install it from official extra repo by pacman.

sudo pacman -S profile-sync-daemon

Edit the config file.

nano ~/.config/psd/psd.conf

Add the browsers in the parentheses of BROWSERS, separating by spaces. Supported browsers are limited to those listed under Possible values:.

BROWSERS=(firefox icecat chromium)

It is controlled by systemd. Make sure do it with --user.

systemd --user start psd.service
systemd --user enable psd.service

You can check how much memory is actually being used by psd preview, but you can also use the ps command.

ps aux | grep "/usr/share/psd"

Add browsers on your own

Here’s the main point. Add browsers that is not supported by psd. Please be aware that future updates may destroy your environment, so please do so at your own risk.

Browsers to add this time

  • Firefox-ESR
  • LibreWolf

Firefox-ESR is a long-term support version of Firefox, and although Mozilla emphasizes that it is for “enterprise” it is highly stable and I recommend to use ESR if you are not particular about it. Internally, it runs as a separate software from the regular version of Firefox, so it can be used together with the regular version.

The specification has been changed since version 140.0 to use the same profile directory as the regular Firefox.

LibreWolf is a browser that eliminates Mozilla-specific sponsored links and telemetry from Firefox and applies the strictest privacy settings. Recommended for those who value privacy but feel IceCat bit too much.

Psd specification

Looking at the source code, it seems that a shell script for each browser is placed in /usr/share/psd/browsers and that it is executed after checking for the existence of a file with the same name as the argument of BROWSERS.

/usr/share/psd/browsers

This could be applied by simply putting my own shell scripts in /usr/share/psd/browsers. I really appreciate this kind of design. I really appreciate this kind of design, because I don’t have to build, package, and install it myself.

Check the shell scripts

if [[ -d "$HOME"/.mozilla/firefox ]]; then
    index=0
    PSNAME="$browser"
    while read -r profileItem; do
        if [[ $(echo "$profileItem" | cut -c1) = "/" ]]; then
            # path is not relative
            DIRArr[$index]="$profileItem"
        else
            # we need to append the default path to give a
            # fully qualified path
            DIRArr[$index]="$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/$profileItem"
        fi
        (( index=index+1 ))
    done < <(grep '[Pp]'ath= "$HOME"/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini | sed 's/[Pp]ath=//')
fi

check_suffix=1

It seems to extract full path of the profiles.

Check Firefox specification

Note that the profile specifications have changed since Firefox-ESR 140.0

Since all the browsers to be added this time are Firefox-based, check the Firefox profile specifications.

about:profiles

Information on where the profiles are located and which one is currently applied can be found at about:profiles.

Information for managing profiles is compiled in the file profile.ini in the directory where the profiles are located.

[Profile1]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=lekocygz.default
Default=1

[Profile0]
Name=default-release
IsRelative=1
Path=wymt0yba.default-release

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1
Version=2

[Install3B6073811A6ABF12]
Default=wymt0yba.default-release
Locked=1

The profile usually used is default-release, where default is the profile in the old specification, and is meant to be a backup in case of emergency.

Firefox seems to distinguish multiple profiles by their suffix like default-release-1, which requires check_suffix=1 in the shell script.

Deploy shell scripts.

For ESR, simply rewrite “firefox” to “firefox-esr”.

Since Firefox-ESR 140.0, this is no longer necessary

if [[ -d "$HOME"/.mozilla/firefox-esr ]]; then
    index=0
    PSNAME="$browser"
    while read -r profileItem; do
        if [[ $(echo "$profileItem" | cut -c1) = "/" ]]; then
            # path is not relative
            DIRArr[$index]="$profileItem"
        else
            # we need to append the default path to give a
            # fully qualified path
            DIRArr[$index]="$HOME/.mozilla/firefox-esr/$profileItem"
        fi
        (( index=index+1 ))
    done < <(grep '[Pp]'ath= "$HOME"/.mozilla/firefox-esr/profiles.ini | sed 's/[Pp]ath=//')
fi

check_suffix=1

LibreWolf had a profile directory ~/.librewolf, not ~/.mozilla, so fix that.

if [[ -d "$HOME"/.librewolf ]]; then
    index=0
    PSNAME="$browser"
    while read -r profileItem; do
        if [[ $(echo "$profileItem" | cut -c1) = "/" ]]; then
            # path is not relative
            DIRArr[$index]="$profileItem"
        else
            # we need to append the default path to give a
            # fully qualified path
            DIRArr[$index]="$HOME/.librewolf/$profileItem"
        fi
        (( index=index+1 ))
    done < <(grep '[Pp]'ath= "$HOME"/.librewolf/profiles.ini | sed 's/[Pp]ath=//')
fi

check_suffix=1

You can leave owner as root and the permission as 644.

If there is no error after restarting psd from systemd, you have succeeded.

systemctl --user stop psd
systemctl --user start psd

Check how it works by psd preview.

Conclusion

If you do it, you really do it at your own risk please.

Changelog

: Just after I wrote this article, the Firefox-ESR 140.0 was released, and the profile directory was changed from ~/.mozilla/firefox-esr to ~/.mozilla/firefox. That means, psd can handle ESR just by entering BROWSERS=(firefox) in the config. Please be sure to check the directory where the profile is located before working on it. And please keep conscious on current specification and read release notes carefully to prepare changes in the future.