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Andrew Colombino's avatar
Andrew Colombino
Brass Contributor
Feb 27, 2020
Solved

How do I deploy custom (in-house) Chromium Edge extensions to my organization?

We're in the process of moving our organization to the new (Chromium) Edge, and we are developing a custom extension we want to deploy to the users in our organization.

 

How do we go about deploying the extension to our users? 

 

The only information I've found talks about publishing the extension in the public Edge Addons Catalog, which requires a partner account and is more fitting for publicizing the extension. Seems a bit much, and we don't want users outside our organization using this extension.

  • Andrew Colombino - If you do not want to publish your extension to store (as hidden as well), the other option is to host the extension in a location within your network that is accessible to all users' devices & use the extension install source policy (which allows you to set the network location from where the extension can be picked up) along with force install policy to deploy the extension.

     

    Here is the policy documentation for your reference:
    Extension install sources - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployEdge/microsoft-edge-policies#extensioninstallsources

    Force install policy - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployEdge/microsoft-edge-policies#extensioninstallforcelist

     

    Let us know if you have any other questions!

     

    Thanks!

    • San_1232110's avatar
      San_1232110
      Copper Contributor
      Hi Balaje_Krishnan,
      Can you guide me how i can install extension to users who don't have internet.
      Can you please advise the steps. I have generated the CRX file and kept it on a network location and tried to configure the extension install source policy & force install policy. But it is not working. Can you help on this.
      • DeltaWasp's avatar
        DeltaWasp
        Brass Contributor

        Hi, is there detailed documentation on how to self-host extensions? I have tried a few times now with an internally hosted crx, setting policy as documented and although I see the browser retrieve the crx (i see it in the access log of the webserver hosting the crx) it doesn't install. There is nothing in the event log, no kind of info on troubleshooting this at all.

        If I point my browser at the url for the crx the browser gives me the following error:

         

         

    • JamieRytlewski's avatar
      JamieRytlewski
      Copper Contributor

      Balaje_Krishnan Thank you for the awesome reply. The instructions were great, the one issue that we are having here is updating extensions right now. We put in an updated version at the site and when close/open the browser, or even hit "Update" in the extensions page the extension isn't updating. 

       

      One question I did have regarding the update_url. Is that actually pointing the crx file or is that supposed to be an xml file. If so, what's the standard xml file? I've seen the chrome version, which I copied and seems like it can work, but that's where I'm thinking we are having issues right now. 

       

      The only way I can get extensions to update is by going to a link and clicking the link, but that doesn't work when we use forceinstall. Of course if we are using forceinstall we would like it to auto update. 

       

      Thanks.

       

      Jamie

      • ryo's avatar
        ryo
        Copper Contributor

        Balaje_Krishnan

        Hi, I have the same issue as JamieRytlewski. I want to update extensions with new crx and xml, but when I replace file and group policy is applied appropriately to a clientPC, but it does not work, in detail being not  updated. 

        Does anyone have a solution to this?

        Thank you,

        Ryo

  • Andrew Colombino Thanks for reaching out with that great question. We'll loop the Enterprise extension team in and let you know if they have any suggestions.

     

    Fawkes (they/them)
    Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

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