Django: Checks with web-view - python

I read the docs for checks: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/topics/checks/
I am missing something: I would like to have a web view where an admin can see what's wrong.
Calling this view should execute the check and the result (ok or failure messages) should be visible.
I could hack something like this myself.
But I would like to go a common way, if there is already such a way.
As opposed to unit-testing this is about checking a production server.
How to do this the django-way?
Examples for checks I have on my mind: Checking if third party services are available (smtp server, archive systems, ERP systems, ...)

The builtin system check is mainly for development actually - the point is that if those tests fail your project will very probably not run at all.
But you can nonetheless call this (or any other) management command from python code using management.call_command - you'll just need to provide a writable file-like object to capture stdout/stderr:
from StringIO import StringIO
from django.core.management import call_command, check
def check_view(request):
out = StringIO()
cmd = check.Command(stdout=out, stderr=out)
call_command(check)
out.seek(0)
context = {"results": out.readlines()}
return render(request, "check.html", context)
Then it's just a matter of plugin this into your admin (which is documented so I won't give a complete example).
NB : wrt/ adding your own checks to the check command, this is fully documented too.

Cloud platform providers often provide health checks that ping your app at a certain point eg: /health
django-health-check provides tests that could be executed when /health is accessed.
If they all pass it returns a 200. Otherwise the cloud provider will notify your admins.
Of course you could make that page only visible for admins to manually check or write your own script to supervise your application status.

Related

Automatically register new prefect flows?

Is there a mechanism to automatically register flows/new flows if a local agent is running, without having to manually run e.g. flow.register(...) on each one?
In airflow, I believe they have a process that regularly scans for any files with dag in the name in the specified airflow home folder, then searches them for DAG objects. And if it finds them it loads them so they are accessible through the UI without having to manually 'register' them.
Does something similar exist for prefect. So for example if I just created the following file test_flow.py, without necessarily running it or adding flow.run_agent() is there a way for it to just be magically registered and accessible through the UI :) - just by it simply existing in the proper place?
# prefect_home_folder/test_flow.py
import prefect
from prefect import task, Flow
#task
def hello_task():
logger = prefect.context.get("logger")
logger.info("Hello, Cloud!")
flow = Flow("hello-flow", tasks=[hello_task])
flow.register(project_name='main')
I could write a script that has similar behavior to the airflow process to scan a folder and register flows at regular intervals, but I wonder if it's a bit hacky or if there is a better solution and I'm justing thinking too much in terms of airflow?
Great question (and awesome username!) - in short, I suggest you are thinking too much in terms of Airflow. There are a few reasons this is not currently available in Prefect:
explicit is better than implicit
Prefect flows are not constrained to live in one place and are not constrained to have the same runtime environments; this makes both the automatic discovery of a flow + re-serializing it complicated from a single agent process (which is not required to share the same runtime environment as the flows it submits)
agents are better thought of as being parametrized by deployment infrastructure, not flow storage
Ideally for production workflows you'd use a CI/CD process so that anytime you make a code change an automatic job is triggered that re-registers the flow. A few comments that may be helpful:
you don't actually need to re-register the flow for every possible code change; for example, if you changed the message that your hello_task logs in your example, you could simply re-save the flow to its original location (what this looks like depends on the type of storage you use). Ultimately you only need to re-register if any of the metadata about your flow changes (retry settings, task names, dependency relationships, etc.)
you can use flow.register("My Project", idempotency_key=flow.serialized_hash()) to automatically capture this; this pattern will only register a new version if the flow's backend representation changes in some way

Zope Legacy Code - Accessing DA Functions

We're working with an older zope version (2.10.6-final, python 2.4.5) and working with a database adapter called ZEIngresDA. We have an established connection for it, and the test function shows that it is totally functional and can connect and run queries.
My job is to change the way that the queries are actually executing, so that they're properly parameterizing variables to protect against sql injection. With that said, I'm running into a security issue that I'm hoping someone can help with.
connection = container.util.ZEIngresDAName()
#returning connection at this point reveals it to be of type ZEIngresDA.db.DA,
#which is the object we're looking for.
connection.query("SELECT * from data WHERE column='%s';", ('val1',))
#query is a function that is included in class DA, functions not in DA throw errors.
Here we run into the problem. Testing this script brings up a login prompt that, when logged into, immediately comes up again. I recognize that this is likely some type of security setting, but I've been unable to find anything online about this issue, though this old of zope documentation isn't spectacular online anyways. If this sounds familiar to you or you have any ideas, please let me know.
I have some experience using Zope2 but it's hard to give a good answer with the limited information you've posted. I'm assuming here that you're using a Python script within the ZMI
Here's a list of things I would check:
Are you logged into the root folder rather than a sub folder in the ZMI? This could cause a login prompt as you're requesting a resource that you do not have access to use
In the ZMI double check the "security" tab of the script you're trying to run to ensure that your user role has permission to run the script
Whilst you're there check the "proxy" tab to ensure that the script itself has permission to call the functions within it
Also worth checking that the products you're trying to use were installed by a user which is still listed in the root acl_user folder - from memory this can cause issues with the login prompt
Best of luck to you - happy (also sad) to hear that there's at least one other Zope user out there!

Python: Securing untrusted scripts/subprocess with chroot and chjail?

I'm writing a web server based on Python which should be able to execute "plugins" so that functionality can be easily extended.
For this I considered the approach to have a number of folders (one for each plugin) and a number of shell/python scripts in there named after predefined names for different events that can occur.
One example is to have an on_pdf_uploaded.py file which is executed when a PDF is uploaded to the server. To do this I would use Python's subprocess tools.
For convenience and security, this would allow me to use Unix environment variables to provide further information and set the working directory (cwd) of the process so that it can access the right files without having to find their location.
Since the plugin code is coming from an untrusted source, I want to make it as secure as possible. My idea was to execute the code in a subprocess, but put it into a chroot jail with a different user, so that it can't access any other resources on the server.
Unfortunately I couldn't find anything about this, and I wouldn't want to rely on the untrusted script to put itself into a jail.
Furthermore, I can't put the main/calling process into a chroot jail either, since plugin code might be executed in multiple processes at the same time while the server is answering other requests.
So here's the question: How can I execute subprocesses/scripts in a chroot jail with minimum privileges to protect the rest of the server from being damaged by faulty, untrusted code?
Thank you!
Perhaps something like this?
# main.py
subprocess.call(["python", "pluginhandler.py", "plugin", env])
Then,
# pluginhandler.py
os.chroot(chrootpath)
os.setgid(gid) # Important! Set GID first! See comments for details.
os.setuid(uid)
os.execle(programpath, arg1, arg2, ..., env)
# or another subprocess call
subprocess.call["python", "plugin", env])
EDIT: Wanted to use fork() but I didn't really understand what it did. Looked it up. New
code!
# main.py
import os,sys
somevar = someimportantdata
pid = os.fork()
if pid:
# this is the parent process... do whatever needs to be done as the parent
else:
# we are the child process... lets do that plugin thing!
os.setgid(gid) # Important! Set GID first! See comments for details.
os.setuid(uid)
os.chroot(chrootpath)
import untrustworthyplugin
untrustworthyplugin.run(somevar)
sys.exit(0)
This was useful and I pretty much just stole that code, so kudos to that guy for a decent example.
After creating your jail you would call os.chroot from your Python source to go into it. But even then, any shared libraries or module files already opened by the interpreter would still be open, and I have no idea what the consequences of closing those files via os.close would be; I've never tried it.
Even if this works, setting up chroot is a big deal so be sure the benefit is worth the price. In the worst case you would have to ensure that the entire Python runtime with all modules you intend to use, as well as all dependent programs and shared libraries and other files from /bin, /lib etc. are available within each jailed filesystem. And of course, doing this won't protect other types of resources, i.e. network destinations, database.
An alternative could be to read in the untrusted code as a string and then exec code in mynamespace where mynamespace is a dictionary defining only the symbols you want to expose to the untrusted code. This would be sort of a "jail" within the Python VM. You might have to parse the source first looking for things like import statements, unless replacing the built-in __import__ function would intercept that (I'm unsure).

Is it possible to import a module in python without using "import" or "eval"? [duplicate]

I understand that letting any anonymous user upload any sort of file in general can be dangerous, especially if it's code. However, I have an idea to let users upload custom AI scripts to my website. I would provide the template so that the user could compete with other AI's in an online web game I wrote in Python. I either need a solution to ensure a user couldn't compromise any other files or inject malicious code via their uploaded script or a solution for client-side execution of the game. Any suggestions? (I'm looking for a solution that will work with my Python scripts)
I am in no way associated with this site and I'm only linking it because it tries to achieve what you are getting after: jailing of python. The site is code pad.
According to the about page it is ran under geordi and traps all sys calls with ptrace. In addition to be chroot'ed they are on a virtual machine with firewalls in place to disallow outbound connections.
Consider it a starting point but I do have to chime in on the whole danger thing. Gotta CYA myself. :)
Using PyPy you can create a python sandbox. The sandbox is a separate and supposedly secure python environment where you can execute their scripts. More info here
http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/sandbox.html
"In theory it's impossible to do anything bad or read a random file on the machine from this prompt."
"This is safe to do even if script.py comes from some random untrusted source, e.g. if it is done by an HTTP server."
Along with other safeguards, you can also incorporate human review of the code. Assuming part of the experience is reviewing other members' solutions, and everyone is a python developer, don't allow new code to be activated until a certain number of members vote for it. Your users aren't going to approve malicious code.
Yes.
Allow them to script their client, not your server.
PyPy is probably a decent bet on the server side as suggested, but I'd look into having your python backend provide well defined APIs and data formats and have the users implement the AI and logic in Javascript so it can run in their browser. So the interaction would look like: For each match/turn/etc, pass data to the browser in a well defined format, provide a javascript template that receives the data and can implement logic, and provide web APIs that can be invoked by the client (browser) to take the desired actions. That way you don't have to worry about security or server power.
Have an extensive API for the users and strip all other calls upon upload (such as import statements). Also, strip everything that has anything to do with file i/o.
(You might want to do multiple passes to ensure that you didn't miss anything.)

Letting users upload Python scripts for execution

I understand that letting any anonymous user upload any sort of file in general can be dangerous, especially if it's code. However, I have an idea to let users upload custom AI scripts to my website. I would provide the template so that the user could compete with other AI's in an online web game I wrote in Python. I either need a solution to ensure a user couldn't compromise any other files or inject malicious code via their uploaded script or a solution for client-side execution of the game. Any suggestions? (I'm looking for a solution that will work with my Python scripts)
I am in no way associated with this site and I'm only linking it because it tries to achieve what you are getting after: jailing of python. The site is code pad.
According to the about page it is ran under geordi and traps all sys calls with ptrace. In addition to be chroot'ed they are on a virtual machine with firewalls in place to disallow outbound connections.
Consider it a starting point but I do have to chime in on the whole danger thing. Gotta CYA myself. :)
Using PyPy you can create a python sandbox. The sandbox is a separate and supposedly secure python environment where you can execute their scripts. More info here
http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/sandbox.html
"In theory it's impossible to do anything bad or read a random file on the machine from this prompt."
"This is safe to do even if script.py comes from some random untrusted source, e.g. if it is done by an HTTP server."
Along with other safeguards, you can also incorporate human review of the code. Assuming part of the experience is reviewing other members' solutions, and everyone is a python developer, don't allow new code to be activated until a certain number of members vote for it. Your users aren't going to approve malicious code.
Yes.
Allow them to script their client, not your server.
PyPy is probably a decent bet on the server side as suggested, but I'd look into having your python backend provide well defined APIs and data formats and have the users implement the AI and logic in Javascript so it can run in their browser. So the interaction would look like: For each match/turn/etc, pass data to the browser in a well defined format, provide a javascript template that receives the data and can implement logic, and provide web APIs that can be invoked by the client (browser) to take the desired actions. That way you don't have to worry about security or server power.
Have an extensive API for the users and strip all other calls upon upload (such as import statements). Also, strip everything that has anything to do with file i/o.
(You might want to do multiple passes to ensure that you didn't miss anything.)

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