How do I generate update.rdf for the firefox addon-sdk?

Question

To provide auto updates for my plugin on my server, I need to create a update.rdf file.

How do I generate such a file?

The documentation is quite overwhelming: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Extension_Versioning,_Update_and_Compatibility#Update_RDF_Format

Answer 1

Use the cfx tool with the --update-link and --update-url flags. This will generate <addon name>.update.rdf, ready to be uploaded to your server.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tools/cfx#updateURL_and_updateLink:

updateURL and updateLink

If you choose to host the XPI yourself you should enable the host application to find new versions of your add-on.

To do this, include a URL in the XPI called the updateURL: the host application will go here to get information about updates. At the updateURL you host a file in the update RDF format: among other things, this includes another URL called updateLink which points to the updated XPI itself.

The --update-link and --update-url options simplify this process. Both options take a URL as an argument.

The --update-link option builds an update RDF alongside the XPI, and embeds the supplied URL in the update RDF as the value of updateLink.

The --update-url option embeds the supplied URL in the XPI file, as the value of updateURL.

Note that as the add-on documentation explains, you should make sure the update procedure for your add-on is secure, and this usually involves using HTTPS for the links.

So if we run the following command:

 cfx xpi --update-link https://example.com/addon/latest/pluginName.xpi --update-url https://example.com/addon/update_rdf/pluginName.update.rdf

cfx will create two files:

• an XPI file which embeds https://example.com/addon/update_rdf/pluginName.update.rdf as the value of updateURL
• an RDF file which embeds https://example.com/addon/latest/pluginName.xpi as the value of updateLink.