Miscellaneous

Invalid CSRF Token

GeoNetwork has a security filter that prevents CSRF attacks. See more info about this type of attack on https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_(CSRF) . All calls to POST, DELETE and PUT endpoints without the proper token will return an error.

../_images/csrf2.png

By default, all AngularJS requests will take care of this token, but all third party APIs and custom user interface calls will have to manually add this token to the request. The token is stored on a cookie called XSRF-TOKEN. This cookie constains a string that has to be added to all requests either by a parameter called “_csrf” or by a header called X-XSRF-TOKEN.

../_images/csrf1.png

Example of CSRF call using curl

First, fo a call to a POST endpoint to get the session and the csrf

$rm -f /tmp/cookie; curl -c /tmp/cookie http://localhost:8080/geonetwork/srv/eng/info?type=me -X POST ; cat /tmp/cookie

   <html>
   <head>
   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"/>
   <title>Error 403 Expected CSRF token not found. Has your session expired?</title>
   </head>
   <body><h2>HTTP ERROR 403</h2>
   <p>Problem accessing /geonetwork/srv/eng/info. Reason:
   <pre>    Expected CSRF token not found. Has your session expired?</pre></p><hr><a href="http://eclipse.org/jetty">Powered by Jetty:// 9.3.9.v20160517</a><hr/>

</body>
</html>
# Netscape HTTP Cookie File
# https://curl.haxx.se/docs/http-cookies.html
# This file was generated by libcurl! Edit at your own risk.

localhost       FALSE   /geonetwork     FALSE   0       XSRF-TOKEN      3825c5f1-49b3-4c62-bc3a-1916d5872d02

Then, using the cookie and the token, you can do whatever you want:

 $curl -v -X POST "http://localhost:8080/geonetwork/srv/eng/info?type=me" -H "X-XSRF-TOKEN: 3825c5f1-49b3-4c62-bc3a-1916d5872d02" --user admin:admin -b /tmp/cookie
*   Trying ::1...
  * TCP_NODELAY set
    * Connected to localhost (::1) port 8080 (#0)
      * Server auth using Basic with user 'admin'
        > POST /geonetwork/srv/eng/info?type=me HTTP/1.1
        > Host: localhost:8080
        > Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=
        > User-Agent: curl/7.52.1
        > Accept: */*
        > Cookie: XSRF-TOKEN=3825c5f1-49b3-4c62-bc3a-1916d5872d02
        > X-XSRF-TOKEN: 3825c5f1-49b3-4c62-bc3a-1916d5872d02
        >
        < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
        < Date: Wed, 17 May 2017 08:52:05 GMT
        * Added cookie JSESSIONID="1na1v7dpu7d7bcsnelvh0vnvn" for domain localhost, path /geonetwork, expire 0
          < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=1na1v7dpu7d7bcsnelvh0vnvn;Path=/geonetwork
          < Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
          * Added cookie serverTime="1495011125647" for domain localhost, path /, expire 0
            < Set-Cookie: serverTime=1495011125647;Path=/
            * Added cookie sessionExpiry="1495011125647" for domain localhost, path /, expire 0
              < Set-Cookie: sessionExpiry=1495011125647;Path=/
              < Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8
              < Pragma: no-cache
              < Cache-Control: no-cache
              < Expires: -1
              < Transfer-Encoding: chunked
              < Server: Jetty(9.3.9.v20160517)
              <
              <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
              <info>
                <me authenticated="true">
                  <profile>Administrator</profile>
                  <username>admin</username>
                  <id>1</id>
                  <name>admin</name>
                  <surname>admin</surname>
                  <email />
                  <organisation />
                  <hash />
                </me>
              <env>
              <baseURL>/geonetwork</baseURL>
              <node>srv</node>
            </env>
          </info>

* Curl_http_done: called premature == 0
  * Connection #0 to host localhost left intact