gorilla/csrf
gorilla/csrf is a HTTP middleware library that provides cross-site request
forgery (CSRF)
protection. It includes:
- The
csrf.Protect
middleware/handler provides CSRF protection on routes
attached to a router or a sub-router. - A
csrf.Token
function that provides the token to pass into your response,
whether that be a HTML form or a JSON response body. - ... and a
csrf.TemplateField
helper that you can pass into your html/template
templates to replace a {{ .csrfField }}
template tag with a hidden input
field.
gorilla/csrf is designed to work with any Go web framework, including:
gorilla/csrf is also compatible with middleware 'helper' libraries like
Alice and Negroni.
Contents
Install
With a properly configured Go toolchain:
go get github.com/gorilla/csrf
Examples
gorilla/csrf is easy to use: add the middleware to your router with
the below:
CSRF := csrf.Protect([]byte("32-byte-long-auth-key"))
http.ListenAndServe(":8000", CSRF(r))
...and then collect the token with csrf.Token(r)
in your handlers before
passing it to the template, JSON body or HTTP header (see below).
Note that the authentication key passed to csrf.Protect([]byte(key))
should:
- be 32-bytes long
- persist across application restarts.
- kept secret from potential malicious users - do not hardcode it into the source code, especially not in open-source applications.
Generating a random key won't allow you to authenticate existing cookies and will break your CSRF
validation.
gorilla/csrf inspects the HTTP headers (first) and form body (second) on
subsequent POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE/etc. requests for the token.
HTML Forms
Here's the common use-case: HTML forms you want to provide CSRF protection for,
in order to protect malicious POST requests being made:
package main
import (
"net/http"
"github.com/gorilla/csrf"
"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)
func main() {
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.HandleFunc("/signup", ShowSignupForm)
r.HandleFunc("/signup/post", SubmitSignupForm).Methods("POST")
http.ListenAndServe(":8000",
csrf.Protect([]byte("32-byte-long-auth-key"))(r))
}
func ShowSignupForm(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
t.ExecuteTemplate(w, "signup_form.tmpl", map[string]interface{}{
csrf.TemplateTag: csrf.TemplateField(r),
})
}
func SubmitSignupForm(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
}
Note that the CSRF middleware will (by necessity) consume the request body if the
token is passed via POST form values. If you need to consume this in your
handler, insert your own middleware earlier in the chain to capture the request
body.
JavaScript Applications
This approach is useful if you're using a front-end JavaScript framework like
React, Ember or Angular, and are providing a JSON API. Specifically, we need
to provide a way for our front-end fetch/AJAX calls to pass the token on each
fetch (AJAX/XMLHttpRequest) request. We achieve this by:
- Parsing the token from the
<input>
field generated by the
csrf.TemplateField(r)
helper, or passing it back in a response header. - Sending this token back on every request
- Ensuring our cookie is attached to the request so that the form/header
value can be compared to the cookie value.
We'll also look at applying selective CSRF protection using
gorilla/mux's sub-routers,
as we don't handle any POST/PUT/DELETE requests with our top-level router.
package main
import (
"github.com/gorilla/csrf"
"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)
func main() {
r := mux.NewRouter()
csrfMiddleware := csrf.Protect([]byte("32-byte-long-auth-key"))
api := r.PathPrefix("/api").Subrouter()
api.Use(csrfMiddleware)
api.HandleFunc("/user/{id}", GetUser).Methods("GET")
http.ListenAndServe(":8000", r)
}
func GetUser(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
w.Header().Set("X-CSRF-Token", csrf.Token(r))
b, err := json.Marshal(user)
if err != nil {
http.Error(w, err.Error(), 500)
return
}
w.Write(b)
}
In our JavaScript application, we should read the token from the response
headers and pass it in a request header for all requests. Here's what that
looks like when using Axios, a popular
JavaScript HTTP client library:
let csrfToken = document.getElementsByName("gorilla.csrf.Token")[0].value
const instance = axios.create({
baseURL: "https://example.com/api/",
timeout: 1000,
headers: { "X-CSRF-Token": csrfToken }
})
try {
let resp = await instance.post(endpoint, formData)
} catch (err) {
}
If you plan to host your JavaScript application on another domain, you can use the Trusted Origins
feature to allow the host of your JavaScript application to make requests to your Go application. Observe the example below:
package main
import (
"github.com/gorilla/csrf"
"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)
func main() {
r := mux.NewRouter()
csrfMiddleware := csrf.Protect([]byte("32-byte-long-auth-key"), csrf.TrustedOrigins([]string{"ui.domain.com"}))
api := r.PathPrefix("/api").Subrouter()
api.Use(csrfMiddleware)
api.HandleFunc("/user/{id}", GetUser).Methods("GET")
http.ListenAndServe(":8000", r)
}
func GetUser(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
w.Header().Set("X-CSRF-Token", csrf.Token(r))
b, err := json.Marshal(user)
if err != nil {
http.Error(w, err.Error(), 500)
return
}
w.Write(b)
}
On the example above, you're authorizing requests from ui.domain.com
to make valid CSRF requests to your application, so you can have your API server on another domain without problems.
Google App Engine
If you're using Google App
Engine,
(first-generation) which doesn't allow you to hook into the default http.ServeMux
directly,
you can still use gorilla/csrf (and gorilla/mux):
package app
func init() {
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.HandleFunc("/", IndexHandler)
http.Handle("/", csrf.Protect([]byte(your-key))(r))
}
Note: You can ignore this if you're using the
second-generation Go runtime
on App Engine (Go 1.11 and above).
Setting SameSite
Go 1.11 introduced the option to set the SameSite attribute in cookies. This is
valuable if a developer wants to instruct a browser to not include cookies during
a cross site request. SameSiteStrictMode prevents all cross site requests from including
the cookie. SameSiteLaxMode prevents CSRF prone requests (POST) from including the cookie
but allows the cookie to be included in GET requests to support external linking.
func main() {
CSRF := csrf.Protect(
[]byte("a-32-byte-long-key-goes-here"),
csrf.SameSite(csrf.SameSiteStrictMode),
)
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.HandleFunc("/signup", GetSignupForm)
r.HandleFunc("/signup/post", PostSignupForm)
http.ListenAndServe(":8000", CSRF(r))
}
Cookie path
By default, CSRF cookies are set on the path of the request.
This can create issues, if the request is done from one path to a different path.
You might want to set up a root path for all the cookies; that way, the CSRF will always work across all your paths.
CSRF := csrf.Protect(
[]byte("a-32-byte-long-key-goes-here"),
csrf.Path("/"),
)
Setting Options
What about providing your own error handler and changing the HTTP header the
package inspects on requests? (i.e. an existing API you're porting to Go). Well,
gorilla/csrf provides options for changing these as you see fit:
func main() {
CSRF := csrf.Protect(
[]byte("a-32-byte-long-key-goes-here"),
csrf.RequestHeader("Authenticity-Token"),
csrf.FieldName("authenticity_token"),
csrf.ErrorHandler(http.HandlerFunc(serverError(403))),
)
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.HandleFunc("/signup", GetSignupForm)
r.HandleFunc("/signup/post", PostSignupForm)
http.ListenAndServe(":8000", CSRF(r))
}
Not too bad, right?
If there's something you're confused about or a feature you would like to see
added, open an issue.
Design Notes
Getting CSRF protection right is important, so here's some background:
- This library generates unique-per-request (masked) tokens as a mitigation
against the BREACH attack.
- The 'base' (unmasked) token is stored in the session, which means that
multiple browser tabs won't cause a user problems as their per-request token
is compared with the base token.
- Operates on a "whitelist only" approach where safe (non-mutating) HTTP methods
(GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE) are the only methods where token validation is not
enforced.
- The design is based on the battle-tested
Django and Ruby on
Rails
approaches.
- Cookies are authenticated and based on the securecookie
library. They're also Secure (issued over HTTPS only) and are HttpOnly
by default, because sane defaults are important.
- Cookie SameSite attribute (prevents cookies from being sent by a browser
during cross site requests) are not set by default to maintain backwards compatibility
for legacy systems. The SameSite attribute can be set with the SameSite option.
- Go's
crypto/rand
library is used to generate the 32 byte (256 bit) tokens
and the one-time-pad used for masking them.
This library does not seek to be adventurous.
License
BSD licensed. See the LICENSE file for details.