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Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

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Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#31

Post by mootothemax »

killion wrote: post #20
tadfisher wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE 7 and 8 are not available in the installer; I'm running Win7 x64 with IE 9.0 installed. Falling back to XP Mode for now.

So if you go to Tools > Developer Tools the browser modes for IE 7 and 8 are not there?

The IE7/IE8 compatibility modes are notoriously unreliable, e.g.:

Most importantly, why does my page not work in IE7, even though it works in IE7 mode in IE9?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5993222/why-does-my-page-...

IE9’s emulation of older IE document modes makes this easier but those emulations are not exact.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/04/testing-multip...

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#32

Post by Groxx »

mtogo wrote: post #29
Groxx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it worse than running an installer? It has identical capabilities, but the .sh file can be read.

If you install a package via the package managers on debian, ubuntu, fedora, and other major distros you can be reasonably sure that the packages aren't malicious because they've been security reviewed before they made it into APT/YUM/etc. Downloading some shell script off the internet and running it without even reading it first is a really bad idea by comparison.

So, you mean like everything on OSX and Windows, where you don't have such package management systems with (long-standing, trustable) benevolent hosts? Yeah, downloading some application off the internet and running them is a really bad idea - how is this worse?

edit: how about iOS? There have been news entries about them sending data where they shouldn't - that's a curated host. iOS is a lot more sandboxed, but that doesn't make the danger nonexistent.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#33

Post by irahul »

mtogo wrote: post #29
Groxx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it worse than running an installer? It has identical capabilities, but the .sh file can be read.

If you install a package via the package managers on debian, ubuntu, fedora, and other major distros you can be reasonably sure that the packages aren't malicious because they've been security reviewed before they made it into APT/YUM/etc. Downloading some shell script off the internet and running it without even reading it first is a really bad idea by comparison.

> If you install a package via the package managers on debian, ubuntu, fedora, and other major distros you can be reasonably sure that the packages aren't malicious because they've been security reviewed before they made it into APT/YUM/etc

When people are delivering software that isn't in the official repository, downloading a script and running it is no less secure than the alternatives.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#34

Post by irahul »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #10

> curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash Bad trend in the open-source community. Please don't ask your users to install stuff this way. Not that you can't be trusted, it leads to people dropping their guard.

> Bad trend in the open-source community. Please don't ask your users to install stuff this way. Not that you can't be trusted, it leads to people dropping their guard.

And what will be the right way to do it? The way people don't drop their guard? `./configure && make && sudo make install`? Or `sudo apt-get install`? How are any of these or many other options seemingly better than this?

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#35

Post by [deleted] »

Groxx wrote: post #32
mtogo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you install a package via the package managers on debian, ubuntu, fedora, and other major distros you can be reasonably sure that the packages aren't malicious because they've been security reviewed before they made it into APT/YUM/etc. Downloading some shell script off the internet and running it without even reading it first is a really bad idea by comparison.

So, you mean like everything on OSX and Windows, where you don't have such package management systems with (long-standing, trustable) benevolent hosts? Yeah, downloading some application off the internet and running them is a really bad idea - how is this worse? edit: how about iOS? There have been news entries about them sending data where they shouldn't - that's a curated host. iOS is a lot more sandboxed, but that…

[deleted]

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#36

Post by bretthoerner »

[deleted] wrote: post #35
Groxx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you mean like everything on OSX and Windows, where you don't have such package management systems with (long-standing, trustable) benevolent hosts? Yeah, downloading some application off the internet and running them is a really bad idea - how is this worse? edit: how about iOS? There have been news entries about them sending data where they shouldn't - that's a curated host. iOS is a lot more sandboxed, but that…

[deleted]

I take it you don't use pip, gem, sbt, (insert your favorite language's package manager) either?

If you do, what's the difference?

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#37

Post by acdha »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #10

> curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash Bad trend in the open-source community. Please don't ask your users to install stuff this way. Not that you can't be trusted, it leads to people dropping their guard.

I'd support this more if they weren't using https - since the user's going to run it anyway, there's no real advantage over any other means of getting this file onto their system. Well-known http:// urls are worse since they allow interesting spoofing attacks if they become popular.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#38

Post by pygy_ »

A small meta-comment:

xdissent[1], the author of this package, is a HN user, but he has negative karma because his fourth comment was snarky and got heavily downvoted. Even though he's aware of the ban he clings to this handle and continues to post messages seen by almost no one (he posted twice on this comment page [2,3]). The rest of the messages eversince the incident have been fine (enable "showdead" in the user control pannel if you want to read them).

Since he seems attached to the handle, it would be nice if he could be upvoted back to the positive side so that he can once again participate.

He's got three upvotable posts in history (before the ban). His karma is currently at -32. This means that he needs 11 brave souls to break even. You know what to do :).

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xdissent, comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xdissent

2. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2955430

3. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2955411

.

Edit: 58 minutes later: -10. Thanks to the upvoters.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#39

Post by wahnfrieden »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #21
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #10

> curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash Bad trend in the open-source community. Please don't ask your users to install stuff this way. Not that you can't be trusted, it leads to people dropping their guard.

I kind of view bash piping as the worlds easiest install package. Unequivocally, it is dangerous to run random pieces of code from the internet, it just seems odd to me that if this same code was in a nice packaged install wizard nobody would say anything about it.

Maybe it should include a first step of piping it to less for review, followed by piping to bash if it looks fine. Slightly better...

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#40

Post by MarkSweep »

pointyhat wrote: post #30
aninteger wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you aren't the creator of those VMs but, any idea why they are so big? What's weird is that there's a jump from 8.4 GB to 13 GB on Windows 7. What is on the IE9 vhd that isn't on the IE8 vhd? Edit: Nevermind, from the official link the IE9 vm comes with additional tools.

On Win7, the jump is due to WinSxS. Every DLL several times and several versions. DLL hell solved.

DLL hell solved indeed. How many versions do you keep?

For what it's worth, the DLLs in System32 are projected out of WinSxS with hardlinks, so they should not take up extra space. You still have the multiple version thing, however that can be somewhat mitigated by making service packs permanent[1].

[1] http://blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/archive/2011/02/15/how-to-...

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