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Feat: Use per-request nonce in CSP to remove 'unsafe-inline' / 'unsafe-eval' - #10308

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Feat: Use per-request nonce in CSP to remove 'unsafe-inline' / 'unsafe-eval'#10308
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@hiteshjambhale hiteshjambhale commented Aug 18, 2026

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Summary

Addresses #7599 — removing 'unsafe-inline' and 'unsafe-eval' from the Content-Security-Policy. (Re-opens #10153, which was auto-closed when the source fork was recreated — same branch, same change.)

This introduces a per-request CSP nonce so inline scripts run only when they carry the nonce, instead of relying on a blanket 'unsafe-inline'. 'unsafe-eval' is dropped from the default policy as well.

What changed

  • security_headers.py — generate a per-request nonce (secrets.token_urlsafe), cached on flask.g so the same value is emitted both in the rendered templates and in the Content-Security-Policy response header. A {nonce} placeholder in CONTENT_SECURITY_POLICY is substituted at runtime.
  • __init__.py — expose csp_nonce to templates.
  • Templates (base.html + tool templates) — tag inline <script>/<style> with nonce="{{ csp_nonce }}", and set window.__webpack_nonce__ so webpack's dynamically injected assets carry the nonce too.
  • config.py — new default policy:
    default-src 'self' ws: http: data: blob:;
    script-src 'self' 'nonce-{nonce}';
    style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline';
    

Notes / scope

  • 'unsafe-eval' is not needed by production bundles (verified). Development bundles use webpack's eval devtool and do need it, so devs add it in config_local.py (documented in config.py).
  • style-src keeps 'unsafe-inline' by necessity: MUI/React inject runtime <style> elements and, more importantly, inline style="" attributes that cannot be covered by a nonce or hash. This matches standard practice for MUI/React apps — the meaningful XSS surface (scripts) is what gets locked down.
  • Backward compatible: if {nonce} is absent from a custom policy, behaviour is unchanged.

Testing

Verified against a production build with the strict policy: app loads, all tools (Query Tool, PSQL, ERD, Schema Diff, Debugger) work, and the JSON editor (ajv / jsonpath-plus) runs cleanly with no 'unsafe-eval' — confirming it can be dropped.

Summary by CodeRabbit

  • Security Improvements
    • Strengthened Content Security Policy protections by removing globally permissive script directives.
    • Added request-specific validation for inline scripts and styles across the application.
    • Updated core pages and tools to remain compatible with the enhanced security policy.
    • Preserved development-mode compatibility where required.
    • Improved protection against unauthorized script execution while maintaining supported application functionality.

hiteshjambhale and others added 3 commits July 15, 2026 16:50
…al' (pgadmin-org#7599)

Harden the default Content-Security-Policy so inline scripts run only via a
per-request nonce instead of a blanket 'unsafe-inline', and drop 'unsafe-eval'.

- Generate a per-request nonce (secrets.token_urlsafe) cached on flask.g so the
  exact same value is emitted in templates and the CSP response header.
- Substitute a {nonce} placeholder in CONTENT_SECURITY_POLICY at runtime.
- Tag inline <script>/<style> tags, and set window.__webpack_nonce__ so webpack's
  dynamically injected assets carry the nonce too.
- New default: script-src 'self' 'nonce-{nonce}' (no 'unsafe-inline'/'unsafe-eval').
- style-src keeps 'unsafe-inline': MUI/React inject un-nonced runtime styles and
  inline style="" attributes that cannot be nonced.
- 'unsafe-eval' is not needed by production bundles; the dev ('eval' devtool)
  bundles add it via config_local.py (documented in config.py).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Walkthrough

The application now generates one CSP nonce per request. The resolved nonce is emitted in the CSP header and passed to inline scripts and styles through the template context. Tests cover nonce generation, policy resolution, debug-mode handling, and header emission.

Changes

Content Security Policy nonce enforcement

Layer / File(s) Summary
Nonce policy and runtime resolution
web/config.py, web/pgadmin/utils/security_headers.py
The default policy uses 'nonce-{nonce}' for scripts. SecurityHeaders generates and caches one nonce per request, substitutes it into the policy, handles debug-mode 'unsafe-eval', and emits the resolved header.
Nonce propagation to templates
web/pgadmin/__init__.py, web/pgadmin/templates/base.html, web/pgadmin/templates/security/render_page.html, web/pgadmin/tools/*/templates/*
The request nonce is exposed as csp_nonce. Base and tool templates apply it to inline scripts and styles.
Nonce and header behavior tests
web/pgadmin/utils/tests/test_security_headers.py
Tests verify nonce caching, regeneration, policy substitution, debug-mode directives, and CSP header emission or omission.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 2d6e0

The change replaces blanket inline-script allowances with per-request CSP nonces and updates the affected templates and defaults; no actionable merge-blocking risk remains beyond normal checks and review.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Browser
  participant FlaskRequest
  participant SecurityHeaders
  participant Templates
  Browser->>FlaskRequest: request page
  FlaskRequest->>SecurityHeaders: resolve Content-Security-Policy
  SecurityHeaders-->>FlaskRequest: return nonce-bearing CSP header
  FlaskRequest->>Templates: provide csp_nonce
  Templates-->>Browser: render nonce-bearing scripts and styles
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Description Check ✅ Passed Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check ✅ Passed The title clearly summarizes the main change: adding per-request CSP nonces to remove unsafe inline and eval directives.
Docstring Coverage ✅ Passed Docstring coverage is 100.00% which is sufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.
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Pull request overview

Adds per-request CSP nonces to restrict inline script execution and remove the default reliance on 'unsafe-eval'.

Changes:

  • Generates and injects request-scoped CSP nonces.
  • Updates the default CSP and template script/style tags.
  • Attempts to propagate the nonce to dynamically loaded Webpack assets.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file
File Description
web/config.py Defines the nonce-based default CSP.
web/pgadmin/__init__.py Exposes the nonce to templates.
web/pgadmin/utils/security_headers.py Generates nonces and substitutes the CSP placeholder.
web/pgadmin/templates/base.html Adds nonces to shared scripts and styles.
web/pgadmin/templates/security/render_page.html Nonces security-page styles.
web/pgadmin/tools/debugger/templates/debugger/direct.html Nonces debugger styles.
web/pgadmin/tools/erd/templates/erd/index.html Nonces ERD styles.
web/pgadmin/tools/psql/templates/psql/index.html Nonces PSQL styles.
web/pgadmin/tools/schema_diff/templates/schema_diff/index.html Nonces schema-diff styles.
web/pgadmin/tools/sqleditor/templates/sqleditor/index.html Nonces SQL editor styles.

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Comment thread web/pgadmin/templates/base.html Outdated
<script type="application/javascript">
<!-- Per-request CSP nonce for webpack's dynamically injected assets -->
<script type="application/javascript" nonce="{{ csp_nonce }}">
window.__webpack_nonce__ = "{{ csp_nonce }}";
@kundansable kundansable added this to the 9.18 milestone Aug 18, 2026
Setting window.__webpack_nonce__ in HTML is a no-op: webpack only substitutes the __webpack_nonce__ identifier inside compiled modules, and MUI/emotion does not read it either (it requires an explicit createCache nonce). Same-origin webpack chunks are already allowed by script-src 'self', so the block did nothing. Remove it; the resourceBasePath inline script keeps its nonce.

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I've reviewed this and, rather than take the 'unsafe-eval' question on trust, ran the branch locally to check it. In short: the mechanism is correct and the template coverage is complete, and I could not break the app with the committed policy. I have no blockers, although I would like the development case handled automatically and some test coverage added.

What I verified

Running this branch with the policy exactly as committed (web/config.py:165):

  • /login returns 200 with script-src 'self' 'nonce-<value>', and every one of the 12 nonce-tagged elements in the page carries exactly the nonce sent in the header. Scanning the same HTML for <script>/<style> tags without a nonce found none.
  • The nonce is freshly generated per request.
  • A custom policy containing no {nonce} token is passed through byte for byte, and an empty policy suppresses the header entirely, so existing deployments that override this setting are unaffected.
  • Grepping the whole branch for inline <script>/<style>, everything Flask renders is tagged. The only untagged ones left are runtime/src/html/*.html, and those are loaded by Electron with loadFile() straight from disk rather than served by Flask, so the header never applies to them.
  • The full application boots under the strict policy in Chromium (menu bar, workspace switcher, Object Explorer, Dashboard) with zero console errors, which also confirms that the scripts RequireJS injects dynamically are fine, since 'self' covers them.

On 'unsafe-eval', the production bundles do contain new Function call sites, so I chased each one. Webpack's globalThis probe in app.bundle.js is short-circuited by a typeof globalThis check and try/caught anyway. The remainder arrive via vanilla-jsoneditor: ajv's runtime schema compiler, jsonpath-plus, and the lodash/JavaScript query languages. None of them are reachable as pgAdmin configures the editor, because JsonEditor.jsx passes neither a validator (so ajv never compiles anything) nor queryLanguages, which leaves only the default JSON Query language registered, and that one composes closures rather than evaluating source. I confirmed that empirically by serving the editor from a page with the exact committed policy and running a transform (.items | filter(.n >= 2)) through the Transform dialog: it previewed and applied correctly, with no CSP violation raised. So the claim in the PR description holds, at least for the current configuration.

🟡 Development bundles will fail with no clue as to why

webpack.config.js:39 sets devtool: 'eval' for anything other than a production build, so a developer running a dev bundle gets a blank page plus a CSP violation in the console until they discover the config_local.py incantation in the comment at web/config.py:157-164. It would be kinder to handle it automatically, and since config_local is merged into config only after config.py has been evaluated, a conditional in config.py itself would not see an overridden DEBUG. The natural home is get_content_security_policy() in security_headers.py:40, which already runs per request: when config.DEBUG is set and the policy carries a nonce, add 'unsafe-eval' to script-src. base.html already branches on config.DEBUG to choose between require.js and require.min.js, so that would be consistent with how the codebase treats dev builds.

🟡 No test coverage

Nothing here is covered by a test, and the failure modes are quiet: someone adding an inline <script> to a template in six months' time will not find out from the suite. Three cheap assertions would lock the behaviour down: that the header nonce matches the nonce on the rendered page's inline tags, that a policy without {nonce} is passed through unchanged, and that the page contains no untagged inline <script>/<style>.

One gotcha for whoever writes it: regression/runtests.py pushes a long-lived app context (app.app_context().push()), and because the nonce is cached on flask.g, which is bound to the app context rather than the request, every request inside that harness sees the same nonce. I hit exactly that whilst testing and it is an artefact of the harness, not a bug in the patch: without the pushed context each request gets a fresh nonce, as it does in normal serving. Still, a "fresh per request" assertion written inside the regression harness will fail misleadingly, and it is worth knowing that the freshness guarantee rests on one app context per request.

🟢 Cheap hardening whilst in the neighbourhood

object-src falls back to default-src, which permits data:, and that is a venerable plugin-based XSS vector; base-uri has no fallback to default-src at all, so <base> injection is currently unconstrained. Adding object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; form-action 'self'; costs nothing and sits squarely within the intent of this PR.

ℹ️ Notes

  • The eval-capable libraries are bundled even though they are unreachable today, so if anyone later enables a JSON schema validator or additional query languages for the JSON editor, 'unsafe-eval' becomes necessary again. Worth a line in the config.py comment so the connection is not lost.
  • The value of locking down script-src is partly undercut by default-src ... http:, which leaves img-src and connect-src open to any host: an injection that did land would still have an exfiltration channel. That is the pre-existing default rather than anything introduced here, and tightening it risks breaking user-configured external resources, so it is follow-up material rather than a change for this PR.
  • The nonces on <style> tags are inert at present, since style-src keeps 'unsafe-inline'. They are harmless and future-proof, but it is worth stating outright in the comment that adding 'nonce-{nonce}' to style-src will disable 'unsafe-inline' and break MUI's runtime styles, because that is a natural next step for someone tightening the policy further.
  • On the Copilot comment about window.__webpack_nonce__: it was right as written, and b53ffaf resolves it the right way by deleting the assignment rather than plumbing it through the entry points. Webpack loads chunks as same-origin src scripts, which 'self' already permits, and the <style> elements its style-loader injects are covered by style-src 'unsafe-inline', so there is nothing left for the nonce to do there.

CI is still running as I write this; the feature test jobs are the meaningful gate for the UI, since they build a production bundle and drive the real application.

Development bundles are built with webpack's 'eval' devtool, which the strict nonce policy blocks, forcing developers to manually add 'unsafe-eval' via config_local.py. Handle it automatically in get_content_security_policy() (which runs per request and therefore sees a DEBUG value overridden in config_local): when config.DEBUG is set and the policy uses a nonce, append 'unsafe-eval' to the script-src directive, without duplicating it. Production is unaffected and custom (non-nonce) policies pass through untouched.

Adds unit tests covering nonce generation/caching/per-request freshness, {nonce} substitution, pass-through of custom/None/empty policies, header emission, and the dev-mode behaviour (including the no-script-src edge case, exact script-src name matching, and no-duplication).

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In `@web/pgadmin/utils/tests/test_security_headers.py`:
- Around line 18-29: Remove the “PLANNED / DEV-MODE” and “EXPECTED TO FAIL”
wording from the security-header test comments, including the repeated instances
at the referenced test sections. Keep the regression test descriptions and
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Comment thread web/pgadmin/utils/tests/test_security_headers.py Outdated
@hiteshjambhale

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Hi @dpage Thanks for taking time to review the PR
I've pushed two follow-ups covering both of your points:

1. Dev case handled automatically (b53ffaf9cf61e8ff33)
Done exactly where you suggested — get_content_security_policy() in security_headers.py. Because it runs per request it sees the merged config.DEBUG (including a config_local override), so when DEBUG is set and the policy uses a nonce it appends 'unsafe-eval' to the script-src directive (without duplicating it). Production is untouched and custom non-nonce policies still pass through byte-for-byte. Verified against a dev build: the header now carries 'unsafe-eval' in debug mode and the app loads cleanly, while a production run stays strict.

2. Test coverage
Added web/pgadmin/utils/tests/test_security_headers.py — covers nonce generation/caching/per-request freshness, {nonce} substitution, pass-through of custom/None/empty policies, header emission in set_response_headers, and the new dev-mode behaviour, including the edge cases (a nonce policy with no explicit script-src, leaving a look-alike script-src-elem untouched, and no duplication).

The dev-mode 'unsafe-eval' behaviour is now implemented, so these are ordinary regression tests. Remove the 'PLANNED'/'EXPECTED TO FAIL until impl' banners (which incorrectly told maintainers not to make the source pass) and an unused MagicMock import.
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