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Clarifies Behavior of SANITIZE_FIELD_NAMES #378

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merged 14 commits into from
Oct 13, 2021
Merged

Clarifies Behavior of SANITIZE_FIELD_NAMES #378

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5966ca4
first pass to disambiguate some points in the spec
Dec 5, 2020
2f33854
fix: removing a should
Dec 5, 2020
f8b2b9f
fix: grammar
Dec 5, 2020
18e3193
fix: clarifying value sanitization
Dec 5, 2020
4981138
fix: grammar
Dec 5, 2020
4ed30f4
Update specs/agents/sanitization.md
astorm Dec 16, 2020
218ccb6
Update specs/agents/sanitization.md
astorm Dec 16, 2020
a14bd8a
chore: change query string parameters from a MUST NOT to a SHOULD NOT
Dec 16, 2020
7629a1e
chore: remove remove/merge clarification
Dec 16, 2020
ff04c63
fix: recommend a specific REDACTED string but still allow for others.
Dec 16, 2020
997594f
fix: h2 to h4
Dec 16, 2020
cf9732f
fix: clarify that we're moving away from value sanitization
Dec 16, 2020
6a21885
Merge branch 'master' into astorm/sanitize-spec
astorm Jun 1, 2021
bd32292
Merge branch 'master' into astorm/sanitize-spec
astorm Jun 10, 2021
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40 changes: 37 additions & 3 deletions specs/agents/sanitization.md
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@@ -1,16 +1,50 @@
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD",
"SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to
be interpreted as described in
[RFC 2119](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt).

## Data sanitization

### `sanitize_field_names` configuration

Sometimes it is necessary to sanitize, i.e., remove,
sensitive data sent to Elastic APM.
This config accepts a list of wildcard patterns of field names which should be sanitized.
These apply to HTTP headers (including cookies) and `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` data (POST form fields).
The query string and the captured request body (such as `application/json` data) will not get sanitized.

This config accepts a list of wildcard patterns of field names which control
how an agent will sanitize data.

| | |
|----------------|---|
| Type | `List<`[`WildcardMatcher`](../../tests/agents/json-specs/wildcard_matcher_tests.json)`>` |
| Default | `password, passwd, pwd, secret, *key, *token*, *session*, *credit*, *card*, authorization, set-cookie` |
| Dynamic | `true` |
| Central config | `true` |

#### Configuration

Agents MUST provide a minimum default configuration of

[ 'password', 'passwd', 'pwd', 'secret', '*key', '*token*', '*session*',
'*credit*','*card*', 'authorization', 'set-cookie']

for the `sanitize_field_names` configuration value. Agent's MAY include the
following extra fields in their default configuration to avoid breaking changes

['pw','pass','connect.sid']
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The fact that some agents have different defaults should be reflected in the remote config description.

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Today I learned there's a remote config description :) These extra fields were/are for the Node.js agent specifically -- they're fields that we previously redacted that would be tricky/cumbersome (but not impossible) to change. However, since it sounds like there's downstream dependencies I'm learning towards just removing this and going with the defaults.

@eyalkoren (or anyone) A few follow up questions for you -- is the the remote config description used by the central configuration system?

That is -- with those defaults set in general_settings.ts does that mean the central configuration system will send these values by default? The follow on question that is -- do agents typically need to set these default values themselves, or can/should we rely on them being set by central configuration?

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is the the remote config description used by the central configuration system?

No, it is only a string for description of the default.

does that mean the central configuration system will send these values by default? The follow on question that is -- do agents typically need to set these default values themselves, or can/should we rely on them being set by central configuration?

The central config does not send these values, agents need to set them themselves. After all, the central config is just one more configuration system for agents, which need to have proper defaults even if it is disabled, and you would typically use the same default regardless of the configuration source.

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@astorm So you leaning towards having the apm-agent-nodejs drop ['pw','pass','connect.sid'] by default? I don't disagree. We'll need to defer doing so until a major ver bump, right?

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Thank you @eyalkoren -- the description of this issue has been updated with a TO DO that reflects the need to update the remote config description.

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@trentm I suspect we'll talk off of GitHub about this, but my intent was to spec ['pw','pass','connect.sid'] this way in order to give us some flexibility in keeping these extra keys redacted and not force a major version bump on us immediately.


## Sanitizing Values

If a payload field's name (a header key, a form key) matches a configured
wildcard, that field's _value_ MUST be redacted and the key itself
MUST still be reported in the agent payload. Agents MAY choose the string
they use to replace the value so long as it's consistent and does not reveal
the value it has replaced. The replacement string SHOULD be `[REDACTED]`.

Fields that MUST be sanitized are the HTTP Request headers, HTTP Response
headers, and form fields in an `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` request
body. No fields (including `set-cookie` headers) are exempt from this.
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There's also transaction.context.request.cookies which is a map of cookie names to values. This map must be redacted, too.

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Only transaction.context.request.cookies map should be filtered or those Set-Cookie HTTP header(s) that reference excluded cookie names as well (assuming that the configured value is different from the default and Set-Cookie is not included)?

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Set-Cookie is a response header. The corresponding request header is Cookie. As the content of the Cookie header is the same as transaction.context.request.cookies, in the Java agent, we're removing Cookie from transaction.context.request.headers. This both minimizes the amount of duplicate data and eliminates the complication of having to redact parts of a header value.

For response headers, there's no equivalent to transaction.context.request.cookies, so we just sanitize the transaction.context.response.headers map.

See also https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-java/blob/master/apm-agent-core/src/main/java/co/elastic/apm/agent/impl/context/SanitizingWebProcessor.java

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in the Java agent, we're removing Cookie from transaction.context.request.headers.

Should we include it in the spec?

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@astorm astorm Dec 16, 2020 •
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@felixelastic @SergeyKleyman @basepi Thank you all. If I'm reading the above correctly, it sounds like there's three data structures/values to consider here

  1. The Set-Cookie response header
  2. The Cookie request header
  3. A representation of the key/values pairs of a Set-Cookie header that's stored in transaction.context.request.cookies

If I spec-ed this as something like

MUST redact transaction.context.request.cookies

If agents capture values for Set-Cookie or Cookie request/response headers, it MUST redact the field values here as well.

would that capture what we're after? Or is there more nuance here?

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@SergeyKleyman Re:

can this behavior be achieved by adding cookie to SANITIZE_FIELD_NAMES default value?

Good question! Thinking that through -- I'm not sure this would achieve what we want. Here's my reasoning: If we added cookie to SANITIZE_FIELD_NAMES, we'd be instructing the agent to REDACT the a header named cookie, and not to remove it completely.

Also, I've been operating under the assumption that the default fields were decided on a while ago and would be a pain to change now after some agent teams have already landed this functionality or are midstream on it.

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@felixbarny Thank you for sharing those data structures -- I learned something. It looks like the Node.js Agent doesn't capture transaction.context.request.cookies at all. Wondering if we need a spec for what part of the request gets captured or if that's just going spec wild.

More pertinent to our discussion though -- What do you think about this as final language for future proofing things?

Fields that MUST be sanitized are the HTTP Request headers, HTTP Response
headers, and form fields in an application/x-www-form-urlencoded request
body. Additionally, if cookie headers are parsed into name/value pairs and reported
to APM Server via the agent (for example, transaction.context.request.cookies), the
cookie names must be sanitized as well.

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Ah, I didn't know some agents don't send request.cookies.
That property is spec'd in the intake API but it's not a required field.

I like that wording!

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Here's my reasoning: If we added cookie to SANITIZE_FIELD_NAMES, we'd be instructing the agent to REDACT the a header named cookie, and not to remove it completely.

The main reason for my suggestion is that it might look strange to the users that Set-Cookie header is redacted while Cookie header is removed completely.

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@SergeyKleyman SergeyKleyman Dec 17, 2020 •
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Additionally, if cookie headers are parsed into name/value pairs and reported
to APM Server via the agent (for example, transaction.context.request.cookies), the
cookie names must be sanitized as well.

If we decide to go with hardcoding cookie header removal it might be worth adding something like:

In addition parsed cookie headers MUST NOT be included in the set of headers (in the example above in transaction.context.request.headers)


The query string and other captured request bodies (such as `application/json`)
SHOULD NOT be sanitized.

Agents SHOULD NOT sanitize fields based on the _value_ of a particular field.