Managed Chrome Device Information Messenger

A compact Chrome extension designed for managed Chrome devices. It responds to predefined messages, akin to commands, by providing device-specific information upon receiving each message.

To retrieve information about a chrome kiosk simply send a message to the extension, by its Id, and utilize the response.

Basic example usage :

	const extId = "mefaccjckdjlgllohohajhbbmfmpdpio"; // the id for the extension. This should be static and is based off of the PEM.
	const command = "getSerialNumber"; // the message body which will act as a command when by the extension.
	chrome.runtime.sendMessage(extId, command, (response) => { console.log("This devices serial number is ", response); }

The chrome extension API's used are asynchronous. Because of this, its advisable to wrap the function that actually posts the message in a promise that can then be awaited for example :

  const doSomething = ()=> {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      chrome.runtime.sendMessage("mefaccjckdjlgllohohajhbbmfmpdpio", command, (response) => {
        if (chrome.runtime.lastError) {
          reject(chrome.runtime.lastError.message as string);
        } else {
          resolve(response);
        }
      });
    });
  }


// other code, just doing javascript things

 let result="";
 try {
 	result = await doSomething();
 	console.log('we did a thing : ', result);
 } catch (error) {
 	console.error('An error occured doing that thing ', result);
 }

Clients should always be able to use the ExtensionId TODO.

The following are the current messages (commands) the extension listens for:

GetSerialNumber - Gets the device serial number
GetLocation - Gets the devices annotated location as it configured in the Enterprise Chrome Admin portal.
GetAssetId - Gets the annotated location as it is in the Enterprise Chrome Admin portal.
GetHostname - Gets the devices hostname
GetDeviceId - Gets the UUID that uniquely identifies the device in the Enterprise Chrome Admin portal
GetNetworkInfo - Gets the network information. ^{These are not case sensitive}

With the exception of the GetNetowrkInfo, all of the responses will be {data: x}, where x is the string value returned by the Chrome API. All of the above map to Chrome extension api's, to learn more about the apis being used see the device attributes documentation here and the networking attributes here.

Troubleshooting

If you receive "You said ", along with the original message, this is an indication that the message text/command was not found and its just being echoed back. For a list of commands refer to the switch statement in listen.ts
Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'sendMessage') Generally occurs when the website is not in the externally_connectable list found in the manifest.json
Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist This can be due to the above, or because the extension Id is incorrect.

Local Development

WIP

Building

The code can be built with NPM using npm run build. This will run webpack, copying the contents to the dist directory. This does not in turn make an extension (CRX) though, for that you can use the NPM CRX package or chrome.

Testing

WIP

Distribution

TODO

jxmoore / ChromeManagement