Opened 18 years ago

Closed 17 years ago

#4131 closed (fixed)

addslashes isn't sufficient to protect literal strings in embedded JavaScript code

Reported by: Ned Batchelder <ned@…> Owned by: Jacob
Component: Template system Version: dev
Severity: Keywords:
Cc: metajack@…, me@…, sam@… Triage Stage: Ready for checkin
Has patch: yes Needs documentation: no
Needs tests: no Patch needs improvement: no
Easy pickings: no UI/UX: no

Description

When creating literal strings in embedded JavaScript code, the addslashes filter is used to escape characters significant to JavaScript:

<script>
var x = "{{x|addslashes}}";
blah(x);
</script>

But if the variable x includes the string "</script>", then this script block is ended too early, and the page is broken.

Attached is a patch that also escapes the </ sequence to ensure that this can't happen.

Attachments (3)

patch_addslashes.txt (1.1 KB ) - added by ned@… 18 years ago.
The patch!
addslash_escape.diff (832 bytes ) - added by Jeremy Dunck <jdunck@…> 18 years ago.
patch_4131.diff (3.0 KB ) - added by durdinator 17 years ago.
escapejs with tests and docs (2nd attempt)

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (25)

by ned@…, 18 years ago

Attachment: patch_addslashes.txt added

The patch!

comment:1 by Collin Grady <cgrady@…>, 18 years ago

But should this really be in addslashes? It's a pretty specific edge-case, and may not be desirable anywhere else - e.g. non-Javascript strings.

Seems like a custom filter made to escape </script> would be better, IMO :)

comment:2 by Collin Grady <cgrady@…>, 18 years ago

Has patch: set
Summary: [patch] addslashes isn't sufficient to protect literal strings in embedded JavaScript codeaddslashes isn't sufficient to protect literal strings in embedded JavaScript code

comment:3 by Simon G. <dev@…>, 18 years ago

Patch needs improvement: set
Triage Stage: UnreviewedDesign decision needed

It does sound like a corner case, but isn't escaping things for javascript the primary usage for addslashes?

comment:4 by anonymous, 18 years ago

It is a corner case, but there's no harm in escaping </ even in non-javascript settings. Given the current difficulty of making Django apps XSS-safe, I'd think we'd want to take an advantage we could.

The ticket has been marked needs_better_patch. Is there some action I should be taking?

comment:5 by ned@…, 18 years ago

(edited, with attribution) It is a corner case, but there's no harm in escaping </ even in non-javascript settings. Given the current difficulty of making Django apps XSS-safe, I'd think we'd want to take any advantage we could.

The ticket has been marked needs_better_patch. Is there some action I should be taking?

comment:6 by Chris Beaven, 18 years ago

There potentially could be harm in escaping </ in a non-javascript setting where your escaped \/ doesn't resolve to /.

However, I agree that XSS-safety should be a priority. Perhaps a specific filter for javascript "escaping"?

comment:7 by Jeremy Dunck <jdunck@…>, 18 years ago

I'm attaching another patch which escapes all things not allowed in a JS string literal per ECMA 262 7.8.4 and also incorporates Ned's change for </script>.

Please do consider changing addslashes to include this or consider adding another filter to handle all embedded strings in JS.

by Jeremy Dunck <jdunck@…>, 18 years ago

Attachment: addslash_escape.diff added

comment:8 by max.rabkin@…, 18 years ago

If this change is not made to addslashes, a warning should be added to its documentation to the effect that it is insufficient to protect strings in javascript.

comment:9 by Jack Moffitt <metajack@…>, 17 years ago

Cc: metajack@… added

I just ran into this bug today (specifically not escaping \n) and this patch works great. Would love to see this in the main tree.

comment:10 by Jeremy Dunck, 17 years ago

Patch needs improvement: unset

Unflagging "Patch needs improvement" since I attached a new patch quite a while ago, and the ticket has had no action on it since then.

comment:11 by Chris Beaven, 17 years ago

Needs tests: set

comment:12 by durdinator, 17 years ago

Needs tests: unset

addslashes as it stands is useful for things other than javascript, which may not accept \/, \n; csv for example (see http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/outputting_csv/ for a prominent example).

I'm attaching a patch which adds this code as a new filter "escapejs", along with docs and tests.

Also, I question the removal in Jeremy's patch of carriage returns, so they're being converted to \r.

comment:13 by durdinator, 17 years ago

Cc: me@… added

comment:14 by Chris Beaven, 17 years ago

Looks good, Andy.

Small change required to documentation: *form feed* ``\f`` to ``\f`` should read *form feed* to ``\f``

Perhaps you could bring this up in django-dev to get a design decision.

comment:15 by Jeremy Dunck, 17 years ago

Sweet, Andy.

FWIW, ECMA 262 7.8.4, to paraphrase, says you can't have a LineTerminator inside a string:

SourceCharacter but not double-quote " or backslash \ or LineTerminator \ EscapeSequence

I'm not sure what to make of that last "\ EscapeSequence".

LineTerminator is defined in 7.3 as LF, CR, LS, PS:

\u000A Line Feed <LF> 
\u000D Carriage Return <CR> 
\u2028 Line separator <LS> 
\u2029 Paragraph separator <PS> 

In any case, I agree it's a bit ambiguous, and probably isn't a common issue. I'd much rather see escapejs go in as-is than debate whether it's completely correct according to a mis-worded spec. At the end of the day, this is about not breaking web pages and avoiding security problems, which I'm sure the patch does better than current trunk. :)

Will you bring it up on django-dev, or should I?

comment:16 by Collin Grady <cgrady@…>, 17 years ago

Isn't that talking about the literal characters though, not the escapes?

So the literal character represented by \u000D or \n wouldn't be allowed, yet '\n' is?

comment:17 by Jeremy Dunck, 17 years ago

Oh. Hah. Yeah, Andy's right, that's just a bug in my patch. Andy's is correct. I just read his comment and mistook his meaning.

by durdinator, 17 years ago

Attachment: patch_4131.diff added

escapejs with tests and docs (2nd attempt)

comment:18 by durdinator, 17 years ago

@SmileyChris: Patch updated, docs fixed.

@jdunck: Can you bring it up on dj-d? I was just trying my hand at a bit of triaging on a handful of tickets, and saw that this one could do with a quick (and easy) tidy.

comment:20 by anonymous, 17 years ago

Cc: sam@… added

comment:21 by Jacob, 17 years ago

Owner: changed from nobody to Jacob
Status: newassigned
Triage Stage: Design decision neededReady for checkin

comment:22 by Jacob, 17 years ago

Resolution: fixed
Status: assignedclosed

(In [6892]) Fixed #4131: added an "escapejs" filter for use in JavaScript strings, and updated the documentation on addslashes to point to the new ticket. Featuring contributions from Ned Batchelder, Jeremy Dunck, and Andy Durdin.

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