# minor skulk, an alternative firefox accounts server

this tool only exists because [fxa](https://github.com/mozilla/fxa/) is nearly
impossible to self-host with adequate amounts of effort. while it is possible to
do and a couple of instructional repositories exist (mostly using a lot of
docker containers), even small installs of fxa use a lot of system resources.
additionally fxa is simply not made with self-hosting in mind and requires both
google *and* amazon cloud services to function properly outside of development
or test installations (which use emulators for those cloud services instead).

as such the scope of minor skulk is extremely limited: it exists to make sync
work. all other features of fxa are out of scope, including (but not limited
to):
 - payment processing
 - support for third-party applications
 - advanced user management
 - support tools
 - and others.

# requirements

 - postgresql 14 or newer
 - a local smtp server
 - a tls reverse proxy (for productive deployments)
 - a [syncstorage-rs](https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs) instance

# installation

minor skulk is built using cargo. rust version 1.61 and newer should work, older
versions have not been tested.

 * compile minor-skulk with `cargo build`.
 * edit `Rocket.toml`, settings values for all the mandatory parameters
   * for test deployments it's sufficient to use the http server provided by
     minor-skulk. live deployments **must** use a reverse proxy to add TLS!
 * install [syncstorage-rs](https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs)
 * configure syncstorage-rs for a single-node setup as exemplified in
   [this nixos module](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/176835).
   you will also have to set `tokenserver.fxa_oauth_server_url` as
   noted in `Rocket.toml`, otherwise actual sync will not work.

# configuring firefox desktop

go to `about:config` and set `identity.fxaccounts.autoconfig.uri` to
the address of your server, e.g. `http://localhost:8000` if you're just
starting minor-skulk locally for testing. if you are not using https you
must also create a `identity.fxaccounts.allowHttp` settings with value `true`,
otherwise firefox will not accept the config. restart firefox for the
changes to take effect, then create an account or log in as usual.

# configuring firefox android

this is a sufficiently involved process that the web interface has a 
dedicated guide. just open the url of your server in firefox on android
and follow the guide. ("just". we're so sorry.)

# license

this project is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
version 3.0 only. portions of this project (the fxa javascript client,
`web/js/browser`) is a fork of mozilla's
[fxa-auth-client](https://github.com/mozilla/fxa/blob/main/packages/fxa-auth-client)
and is licensed under the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0.