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Connecting Firebug to Firebug with Crossfire

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Mike Rennie edited this page Aug 9, 2012 · 8 revisions

Prerequisites

You'll probably want the most up-to-date versions of Firefox, Firebug, and Crossfire. At the time of writing, these are:

De-traced versions of Firebug 1.7 and Crossfire 0.3 are currently not available, however, even if they were, the tracing versions are highly recommended.

If you want to debug with Chromebug, an exactly matching version of Chromebug is highly recommended.

Setting up Firefox profiles

Create two (2) new Firefox profiles. You might want to name them something like "crossfire-client" and "crossfire-server" or "crossfire1" and "crossfire2". Install the Firebug and Crossfire extensions into both profiles.

Start up both profiles in separate Firefox processes using the -no-remote switch and any one of the -P, -ProfileManager, or -profile switches. This is explained in greater detail in many other places so I won't get into it here.

You should now have 2 instances of Firefox with Firebug and Crossfire. If the install was successful the Firebug Firebug-gray-16.png and Crossfire crossfire disconnected icon icons (gray as they are initially disabled) should appear in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

Connecting from the GUI

You should now have 2 copies of Firefox open with separate profiles containing identical versions of Firebug and Crossfire.

Open Firebug in the first profile, the Firebug icon will change color to Firebug. Also open FBTrace ( Tools > Firebug > Open Firebug Tracing ) if you have it. In the FBTrace options panel you will probably at least want to enable CROSSFIRE and CROSSFIRE_TRANSPORT.

Click on the Crossfire icon crossfire disconnected icon in the status bar. A small menu with two (2) options will appear. The first option is Start Server and the second is Connect as client. Select Start Server. A dialog will appear that looks like:

Crossfire-server-dialog

There are two (2) fields in the dialog, Host: and Port:, and two (2) buttons, Cancel and OK. You should not need to change either of the values at this time, so click OK to start the Crossfire server. The crossfire icon will change color to crossfire server waiting icon. The tooltip text for the icon should read waiting for connection on port 5000.

Now go to the second Firefox profile, and again click the Crossfire status bar icon (which should still be in the disabled state crossfire disconnected icon). This time select Connect as client. A dialog similar to the server dialog will appear. You still should not need to change either value. Click OK.

The Crossfire status icon in both profiles will change to crossfire connected icon indicating they have successfully connected and exchanged handshakes.

Connecting from the command-line

If you're the kind of person who likes to read ahead, your reward is that you can skip step 2a. But, you might want to check out the Crossfire Command-line Options while you're at it.

First start the server process:

$ firefox -profile crossfire-server -crossfire-server-port 5000 -no-remote

Crossfire status icon is crossfire server waiting icon.

Then start the client:

$ firefox -profile crossfire-client -crossfire-host localhost -crossfire-port 5000 -no-remote

Both Crossfire status icons are now crossfire connected icon.

Since I assume most people will be using the command-line to launch both Firefox profiles, it's probably easier to use to command-line options rather than the GUI, but I guess some people just like to click on stuff. Either way should work. Note that although to start Crossfire in client mode requires the -crossfire-host option, connecting to any host other than localhost will not work by default without changing the value of the extensions.crossfire.loopbackOnly preference to false.

Verifying a successful connection

In addition to the icon state changing, there will be output from FBTrace, if you have the CROSSFIRE option enabled, you should see the "CROSSFIRE onConnectionStatusChanged" message in both client and server processes. If you have also enabled CROSSFIRE_TRANSPORT you will see "_waitHandshake" and "_sendHandshake" log messages.

If you are using Chromebug you should be able to set a breakpoint in crossfire.js in CrossfireModule's onConnectionStatusChanged() method, which will be hit upon connecting. Once you are connected, performing actions in Firebug such as setting a breakpoint, hitting a breakpoint, or stepping through code in Firebug in the Crossfire server process should cause CrossfireModule's fireEvent() method to be called with the Crossfire packet corresponding to the event.

Using FBTrace

Crossfire adds several additional FBTrace options.

  • CROSSFIRE - general tracing messages, mostly from CrossfireModule in chrome/content/crossfire.js.
  • CROSSFIRE_FRAMES - is used for tracing of stack frame serialization code called in CrossfireModule's onStartDebugging() hook.
  • CROSSFIRE_TRANSPORT - is for tracing of transport layer, in resources/SocketTransport.js.
  • CROSSFIRE_TOOLS - is tracing related to loading and registering 'tools' as part of the Crossfire Tools API.

Using Chromebug

Debugging Crossfire code with Chromebug usually works, to some extent, but your mileage may vary.

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