Thread (4 messages) flat view 4 messages, 3 authors, 2016-06-15

Re: [PATCH] Verify Content-Type from smart HTTP servers

From: Jeff King <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:56:01

On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 02:09:40PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
Before parsing a suspected smart-HTTP response verify the returned
Content-Type matches the standard. This protects a client from
attempting to process a payload that smells like a smart-HTTP
server response.

JGit has been doing this check on all responses since the dawn of
time. I mistakenly failed to include it in git-core when smart HTTP
was introduced. At the time I didn't know how to get the Content-Type
from libcurl. I punted, meant to circle back and fix this, and just
plain forgot about it.

Signed-off-by: Shawn Pearce <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <redacted>
Should this be "From:" Shawn? The tone of the message and the S-O-B
order makes it look like it.
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
@@ -133,16 +135,19 @@ static struct discovery* discover_refs(const char *service)
 	last->buf = last->buf_alloc;
 
 	if (maybe_smart && 5 <= last->len && last->buf[4] == '#') {
-		/* smart HTTP response; validate that the service
+		/*
+		 * smart HTTP response; validate that the service
 		 * pkt-line matches our request.
 		 */
-		struct strbuf exp = STRBUF_INIT;
-
+		strbuf_addf(&exp, "application/x-%s-advertisement", service);
+		if (strbuf_cmp(&exp, &type))
+			die("invalid content-type %s", type.buf);
Hmm. I wondered if it is possible for a non-smart server to send us down
this code path, which would now complain of the bogus content-type.
Something like an info/refs file with:

  # 1
  # the comment above is meaningless, but puts a "#" at position 4.

But I note that we would already die in the next line:
 		if (packet_get_line(&buffer, &last->buf, &last->len) <= 0)
 			die("%s has invalid packet header", refs_url);
so I do not think the patch makes anything worse. However, should we
take this opportunity to make the "did we get a smart response" test
more robust? That is, should we actually be checking the content-type
in the outer conditional, and going down the smart code-path if it is
application/x-%s-advertisement, and otherwise treating the result as
dumb?

It's probably not a big deal, as the false positive example above is
quite specific and unlikely, but it just seems cleaner to me.

As a side note, should we (can we) care about the content-type for dumb
http? It should probably be text/plain or application/octet-stream, but
I would not be surprised if we get a variety of random junk in the real
world, though.

-Peff
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