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I recently installed BlackSheep on my MacBook. However, every few minutes, it prompts me to type in my password.

Is this a well-known problem? More to the point, is there way to use BlackSheep without needing to type in my password every few minutes?

~~Edit~~

So far, the only answer I've gotten that works is to log in as root. This seems like a case of the cure is worse than the disease. Isn't it a big security risk to be routinely running Firefox as root?

I would love it if someone knows a better way of getting around this...

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I would start by checking that you have the latest Update to BlackSheep from November 8.

In the article Firesheep, iancharnas comments:

For people receiving the --fix-permissions error, here's what to do:

  1. Under Applications -> Utilities open Terminal

  2. Copy-and-Paste this command into Terminal and hit [enter]

    sudo ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/*/extensions/firesheep\@codebutler.com/platform/Darwin_x86-gcc3/firesheep-backend --fix-permissions

  3. It will ask you for your password, type it in.

  4. Restart firefox and the error should go away.

If you still get the "--fix-permissions" error, you probably have FireVault installed and need to do the following. If you have FileVault enabled, it will mount your home directory as "nosuid", so the packet-capturing backend won't be able to run until you Copy-and-Paste these additional commands into the Terminal to move the firesheep-backend to a place it can run SUID root:

sudo mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/*/extensions/firesheep\@codebutler.com/platform/Darwin_x86-gcc3/firesheep-backend /usr/bin/firesheep-backend
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/firesheep-backend ~/Library/Application\Support/Firefox/Profiles/*/extensions/firesheep\@codebutler.com/platform/Darwin_x86-gcc3/firesheep-backend
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  • Running firefox as root does stop it from happening. However, is it safe to just always run firefox as root? That seems like an extra security risk?
    – David Oneill
    Nov 28, 2010 at 4:19
  • I tried moving the extension folder from the profile to the application directory, and that didn't seem to solve the problem. I'm going to try that one again, but if you have any ideas on how to make that work, I'd appreciate that.
    – David Oneill
    Nov 28, 2010 at 4:24
  • I tried moving the extension again, to no avail. It still prompts for the password ever x min (where x is the frequency that it is set up to check)
    – David Oneill
    Nov 28, 2010 at 4:37
  • What about the guest account workaround?
    – harrymc
    Nov 28, 2010 at 8:05
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    Also see comment by iancharnas here : codebutler.com/firesheep#comment_5843350
    – harrymc
    Nov 28, 2010 at 9:39
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I'm the author of BlackSheep. A few users reported this issue on Windows and Linux. Usually, this is caused by an AV or sandboxing program that prevents the browser from running an arbitrary executable. You might want to check if you have such program running.

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  • Hmm... As I said in the original question, this is running on a MacBook. I don't have any AV software installed. I'm not sure if the Max OSX runs firefox in a sandbox by default, the solution that ended up working for me (see above) might be a clue about why this is happening.
    – David Oneill
    Jul 15, 2011 at 19:17

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