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Installing Firefox Sync on WebFaction

Below is a complete set of commands needed to install the Firefox Sync server on your WebFaction shared account. Tested on CentOS 7.

Preparation

Go to the Webfaction Control Panel and follow these steps:

Ceate a new application: mod_wsgi + mod_wsgi x.x.x/Python 2.7
Ceate a new subdomain: Default settings
Ceate a new website: Sync subdomain + Sync application
Ceate a new database: PostgreSQL + Unicode + Tsearch2

Now SSH into your WebFaction account and start pasting.

Variables

Copy the values for the DOMAIN_SYNC, APPNAME_SYNC, DBNAME_SYNC, DBUSER_SYNC and DBPASS_SYNC variables from the WebFaction control panel.

APPNAME_SYNC="example_com_sync"
DOMAIN_SYNC="sync.example.com"
DBNAME_SYNC="example_com_sync"
DBUSER_SYNC="username"
DBPASS_SYNC="abc123"
MAIL_FF_ACCOUNT="username@example.com"

Installation

pip2.7 install virtualenv
cd ~/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC
git clone https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncserver
cd syncserver
make build
sed -i "s@public_url = http://localhost:5000/@public_url = http://$DOMAIN_SYNC/@" syncserver.ini
sed -i "s@#sqluri = sqlite:////tmp/syncserver.db@sqluri = postgresql://$DBUSER_SYNC:$DBPASS_SYNC\@localhost:5432/$DBNAME_SYNC@" syncserver.ini
sed -i "s@#secret = INSERT_SECRET_KEY_HERE@secret = `head -c 20 /dev/urandom | sha1sum | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9'`@" syncserver.ini
cd $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/apache2/conf
sed -i "s@DirectoryIndex index.py@#DirectoryIndex index.py@" httpd.conf
sed -i "s@DocumentRoot $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/htdocs@DocumentRoot $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/syncserver@" httpd.conf
sed -i "s@python-path=$HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/lib/python2.7@python-path=$HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/syncserver/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/@" httpd.conf
echo "" >> httpd.conf
echo "WSGIPassAuthorization On" >> httpd.conf
echo "WSGIScriptAlias / $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/syncserver/syncserver.wsgi" >> httpd.conf
sed -i "s@<Directory $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/htdocs>@<Directory $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/syncserver>@" httpd.conf
sed -i "s@Options +ExecCGI@Require all granted@" httpd.conf
sed -i "/AddHandler wsgi-script .py/d" httpd.conf

Firefox settings

Go to about:config and change the value of identity.sync.tokenserver.uri to http://DOMAIN_SYNC/token/1.0/sync/1.5 (replace DOMAIN_SYNC with your own)
Disconnect all devices from your Firefox account
Re-enable sync on all devices

Finish and clean up

cd ~/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/syncserver
sed -i "s@# allow_new_users = false@allow_new_users = false@" syncserver.ini
local/bin/python2.7 bin/delete_user_data.py $MAIL_FF_ACCOUNT
$HOME/webapps/$APPNAME_SYNC/apache2/bin/restart

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