Enable extension programmatically in incognito mode on ubuntu - google-chrome

Question

We are setting kiosk-type workstations with chromium browser running in incognito mode. There is a need to have redux-devtools extension for development purposes.
We managed in install it using scripts. Basically uploaded bundles and manifest.json to
/usr/share/chromium-browser/extensions
In non-incognito mode it works. And there is a way to enable it in incognito move using UI (settings for the extension).
But the thing is that we have no access for this interaction and we have to do it somehow programmatically. Looks like its not some browser setting but extension's one. Is there any way to do it using bash or smth. similar?

Answer 1

There is no direct way to do it. But I've manage to do this in no so obvious way. I made it work by directly modifying preferences file. To make it work all chrome instances should be closed. Also instead of installing extension just unpack it somewhere you know. So here is how to start chrome
`chrome --incognito --load-extension=<path/to/unpacked/extension>`
This will start chrome with extension installed meaning that some preference entries will be created. Now we need to modify value that responsible for allowing extension in incognito mode. For this I wrote a small python3 script:
extension_incognito_enabled.py
import json
import os
import sys
google_chrome_preferences ="/home/j2ko/.config/google-chrome/Default/Preferences"
incognito_value = (False, True)[sys.argv[1] == "true"]
print("Closing all chrome instances")
os.system('killall chrome')
#As we load extension using --load-extension flag we can use path to it
field_to_compare="path"
field_value_to_compare_with="/home/j2ko/Downloads/isAllowedAccess"
jsonPreferences =""
with open(google_chrome_preferences, "r+") as jsonFile:
jsonPreferences = json.load(jsonFile)
settings = jsonPreferences["extensions"]["settings"]
for extension_name in settings:
extension_setting = settings[extension_name]
if extension_setting[field_to_compare] == field_value_to_compare_with:
extension_setting["incognito"] = incognito_value
print("Successfully modified file. Now incognito mode value is ", incognito_value)
break
with open(google_chrome_preferences, "w+") as jsonFile:
json.dump(jsonPreferences, jsonFile)
I've tested it using isAllowedAccess. So to suit your needs you need to modify script and provide proper values for field_value_to_compare_with (which actually equals to --load-extension value) and provide correct google_chrome_preferences value.
You can use script as :
extension_incognito_enabled.py true # to enable
extension_incognito_enabled.py false # to disable
If you only have python2 simply remove print lines and it should work as well.