Where is a way to run javascript code remotely? - javascript

I want to be able to run live code remotely. Therefor, I want to be able to run some arbitrary code on machine A and then, transfer some of that code to machine B and continue running it from machine B.
I find out that I can get the source code of any function via fn.toString().
Example:
var foo = function(a, b) { return a + b; }
console.log(foo.toString()); // prints "function (a, b) { return a + b; }"
So far so good, but what happens in this case?
var bar = (function() {
var x = 5;
return function(a) { return a + x; }
})();
console.log(bar.toString()); // prints "function (a) { return a + x; }"
In this case there is no way to get the variable x, so I can't run it on a remote machine.
Any suggestions?

The reason your second function returns the following as a string
function(a) { return a + x; }
is because you have an anonymous function that returns the function above. "bar" is then defined as that function, and not the anonymous one. Also, given that your returned function is localized, then you cannot run it verbatim. Instead, you can use the variable that holds it, "bar()", and once it runs, it will know the value of x.

What you do need is a js runner, but AFAIK there is none yet(?)
What it should be:
You would have a computer called "a runner" which is a slave and only waiting for code to be pushed on it. Another master computer/process would have access to this slave runner and push a block of code to be executed.
Right now, to what I know, there is no way to easily split your code and just run it remotely but one way I would see to achieve this would be to set up an RPC server which would get the source code as an argument and execute that one using exec(). You could, for instance, do this using a JSON-RPC server. The JSON-RPC client would then post the block of code and the client return the result as a JSON object.
But this would only give you back a JSON object and you still have to serialize your function or code to be run remotely. It should, however, be good enough for most of the use. I bet there should be serverless lambda-like services doing this even with a regular POST i.e. you would post source code to this service and get the result in the response.
I hope there will be "one day" a kind of remote worker where instead of running the code in another thread "locally" that one would be run "remotely". Please comment if you ever saw such a "remote worker".

Related

Cypress how to store values yielded by a function into a variable

This has been bugging me from a long time. I am not well versed with javascript. Here it goes:
How do i store return value of a function into a variable:
lenValue = cy.get(selector).children().length
Above line of code returns undefined But when i try following in cypress test runner console then I get a valid output:
cy.$$(selector).children().length --> gives me correct number
How to return value from inside a then function and catch it to reuse later:
file1.js
function a(selector, attrName){
cy.get(selector).then(function ($el){
return $el.attr(attrName));
}
file2.js
state = file1Obj.a('#name','name')
What you're doing makes complete sense, but simply put, you cannot. (per the docs).
https://docs.cypress.io/guides/core-concepts/variables-and-aliases/#Return-Values
You can, however, use aliases to accomplish what (I think) you're after.
https://docs.cypress.io/guides/core-concepts/variables-and-aliases/#Aliases
#aeischeid shows you the wrong way to do it.
His code works only for a static site, but web pages are rarely static. As soon as API fetches are involved, lucky timing goes out the window and the test bombs.
This is why Cypress commands have automatic retry. Otherwise we could just build tests with jQuery.
Since cy.$$(selector).children().length --> gives me correct number, use that inside the helper function.
function a(selector, attrName) {
return cy.$$(selector).attr(attrName); // jQuery methods used
}
Or
function a(selector, attrName) {
return Cypress.$(selector).attr(attrName); // jQuery methods used
}
But be aware that jQuery only handles static pages, it does not retry if the attribute that you want to query arrives slowly.
For that use a command
cy.get('#name')
.should('have.attr', 'name') // retries until name exists
.then(name => { // guaranteed to have a value
// use name here
})
Here is a example from a cypress test I have that seems pretty relevant
let oldDescription;
cy.get('input#description').should(($input) => {
oldDescription = $input.val();
});
let randomDescription = Math.random().toString(36).substring(7);
cy.get('input#description').clear().type(randomDescription);
cy.get('input#description')
.parents('.ant-table-row')
.contains('Save').click();
cy.get('input#description').should('not.exist');
cy.contains(`${randomDescription}`);
cy.contains(`${oldDescription}`).should('not.exist');
because oldDescription is set inside of an asyncronous callback it isn't safe to expect it to be set, farther down the code outside of that callback, but in a lot of cases with cypress you end up having some other .get call or thing that waits, effectively pausing the code long enough that you can get away with not worrying about it.

Postman:how to set up library of (semi-)complicated reusable scripts for collection

Update
I've completely rewritten this question based on subsequent investigation. Hopefully this will generate some answers.
I'm new to Postman, and trying to figure out how to most efficiently build a collection of tests for a REST application. There are a bunch of utility functions that I'd like to have accessible in each of my test scripts, but cut-and-paste-ing them in to each test script seems like a horrible solution.
In looking at the various "scopes" that Postman allows you to squirrel away data (e.g. globals, environment, collection), it seems that all of these are merely string/number stores. In other words, it properly stores them if you can/do stringify the results. But it doesn't actually allow you to store proper objects or functions. This makes sense, since each script seems to be run as a separate execution, so the idea of sharing pointers to things between different scripts doesn't make sense.
It seems like the accepted way to share utility functions is to toString() the function in the defining script (e.g. the Collection Pre-Req script), and then eval() that stringified version in the test script. For instance:
Collection Pre-Req Script
const utilFunc = () => { console.log("I am a utility function"); };
pm.environment.set("utilFunc",utilFunc.toString() );
Test Script
const utilFunc = eval(pm.environment.get("utilFunc"));
utilFunc();
The test script will successfully print to console "I am a utility function".
I've seen people do more complicated things where, if they have more than one utility function, put them in to an object like utils.func1 and utils.func2, and have the overall function return the utils object, so the test script still only has to have a single line at the top importing the whole thing.
The problem I'm running in to is scoping - since the literal text of the function is executed in the Test Script, everything thing that the utility function has to have must be in that code, or otherwise exist at eval() time in the Test Script. For instance, if I do:
Collection Pre-Req Script
const baseUtilFunc = (foo) => { console.log(foo); };
const utilFunc1 = (param) => { baseUtilFunc("One: " + param); };
const utilFunc2 = (param) => { baseUtilFunc("Two: " + param); };
pm.environment.set("utilFunc1",utilFunc1.toString() );
pm.environment.set("utilFunc2",utilFunc2.toString() );
Test Script
const utilFunc1 = eval(pm.environment.get("utilFunc1"));
const utilFunc2 = eval(pm.environment.get("utilFunc2"));
utilFunc1("Test");
This fails because, in the Test Script, baseUtilFunc does not exist. Obviously, in this example, it'd be easy to fix. But in a more complicated world where the utility functions I expect to use in my Test Scripts are themselves built on top of underlying helper functions, it gets more difficult.
So what is the right way to handle this issue? Do people just cram all the relevant logic in to one big function that they then call toString() on? Do they embed an extraction-from-environment-and-then-eval in each util function within its definition, so that it works in the Test Script context? Do they export each individual method?
There are different ways to do it. The way I did recently for one of the projects is creating a project in Git and then using raw url to fetch the data. I have a sample created at below repo
https://github.com/tarunlalwani/postman-utils
To load the file you will need to associate the below code at collection level
if (typeof pmutil == "undefined") {
var url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tarunlalwani/postman-utils/master/pmutils.js";
if (pm.globals.has("pmutiljs"))
eval(pm.globals.get("pmutiljs"))
else {
console.log("pmutil not found. loading from " + url);
pm.sendRequest(url, function (err, res) {
eval(res.text());
pm.globals.set('pmutiljs', res.text())
});
}
}
As shown in below screenshot
And the later in the tests or Pre-Requests you will run the below line of code to load it
eval(pm.globals.get("pmutiljs"))
And then you can use the functions easily in test.

Calling object functions with variables

I'm building a simple node.js websocket server and I want to be able to send a request from a client to the server and have it just take care of things (nothing that could cause harm). Ideally the client will pass the server an object with 2 variables, one of them for the object and the other for the specific function in that object to call. Something like this:
var callObject = {
'obj': 'testObject',
'func':'testFunc'
}
var testObject = {
func: function(){
alert('it worked');
}
}
// I would expect to be able to call it with sometihng like.
console.log( window[callObject.obj] );
console.log( window[callObject.obj][callObject.func] );
I tried calling it with global (since node.js doesn't uses it instead of a browsers window) but it won't work, it always tells me that it can't find callObject.func of undefined. If I call a console.log on callObject.obj it shows the objects variable, as a string, as expected. If run a console.log on the object itself I get the object back.
I'm guessing this is something rather simple, but my Google-fu has failed me.
My recommendation is to resist that pattern and not have client code pick any function to call. If you are not careful you have built yourself a nice large security hole. Especially if you are considering using eval.
Instead have a more explicit mapping between data sent by the client and server code. (Similar to what routes in express what give you).
You might have something like this
const commands = { doSomething() { ... } );
// Then you should be able to say:
let clientCommand = 'doSomething'; // from client
commands[clientCommand](param);
This should be pretty close to what you want to achieve.
Just make sure doSomething validates any parameters passed in.
For two levels of indirection:
const commandMap = { room: { join() { ...} }, chat: { add() { ... } }};
// note this is ES6 syntax
let clientCmd = 'room';
let clientFn = 'join';
commandMap[clientCmd][clientFn]();
I think you might just have to find the right place to put the command map. Show your web socket handler code.

Why is console.log() not working client-side when inside Meteor methods?

I want to define the same method for both client and server, so I have the following code inside common/methods.js.
Meteor.methods({
doSomething: function (obj) {
if(this.isSimulation) {
console.log('client');
}
if(!this.isSimulation) {
console.log('server');
}
console.log('both');
return "some string";
}
});
Then I called this method inside client/dev.js.
Meteor.call('doSomething', someObj, function (e, data) {
console.log(e);
console.log(data);
});
On the server's console, I can read:
I20150622-21:56:40.460(8)? server
I20150622-21:56:40.461(8)? both
On the client's (Chrome for Ubuntu v43.0.2357.125 (64-bit)) console, the e and data arguments are printed, but the console.log() from the Meteor method is not, where I expected it to output the strings
client
both
Why do console.log() not work on the client inside Meteor methods?
To debug, I split the Meteor.methods into separate client and server code. Then introducing a large loop so the server-side operation so it takes a long time to complete, while the client-side is very quick.
server
doSomething: function (obj) {
var x = 0;
for(var i = 0; i< 9999999; i++) {
x++;
}
console.log(x);
return "some string";
}
client
doSomething: function (obj) {
console.log('client');
}
Still, no message is printed on the client.
Thanks to #kainlite for helping me debug this together. It turns out the problem was a simple one of file load order.
I defined my methods in common/methods.js, whereas my client-side calls were made in client/dev.js, which gets loaded first.
So when the call was made the method wasn't defined, hence it won't run. Moving the methods.js file inside the /lib directory fixed the issue.
Methods are only executed on the server, they are the sync way of doing a remote call.
Methods
Methods are server functions that can be called from the client. They
are useful in situations where you want to do something more
complicated than insert, update or remove, or when you need to do data
validation that is difficult to achieve with just allow and deny.
http://docs.meteor.com/#/basic/Meteor-users

Is it possible to sandbox JavaScript running in the browser?

I'm wondering if it's possible to sandbox JavaScript running in the browser to prevent access to features that are normally available to JavaScript code running in an HTML page.
For example, let's say I want to provide a JavaScript API for end users to let them define event handlers to be run when "interesting events" happen, but I don't want those users to access the properties and functions of the window object. Am I able to do this?
In the simplest case, let's say I want to prevent users calling alert. A couple of approaches I can think of are:
Redefine window.alert globally. I don't think this would be a valid approach because other code running in the page (i.e., stuff not authored by users in their event handlers) might want to use alert.
Send the event handler code to the server to process. I'm not sure that sending the code to the server to process is the right approach, because the event handlers need to run in the context of the page.
Perhaps a solution where the server processes the user defined function and then generates a callback to be executed on the client would work? Even if that approach works, are there better ways to solve this problem?
Google Caja is a source-to-source translator that "allows you to put untrusted third-party HTML and JavaScript inline in your page and still be secure."
Have a look at Douglas Crockford's ADsafe:
ADsafe makes it safe to put guest code (such as third party scripted advertising or widgets) on any web page. ADsafe defines a subset of JavaScript that is powerful enough to allow guest code to perform valuable interactions, while at the same time preventing malicious or accidental damage or intrusion. The ADsafe subset can be verified mechanically by tools like JSLint so that no human inspection is necessary to review guest code for safety. The ADsafe subset also enforces good coding practices, increasing the likelihood that guest code will run correctly.
You can see an example of how to use ADsafe by looking at the template.html and template.js files in the project's GitHub repository.
I created a sandboxing library called jsandbox that uses web workers to sandbox evaluated code. It also has an input method for explicitly giving sandboxed code data it wouldn't otherwise be able to get.
The following is an example of the API:
jsandbox
.eval({
code : "x=1;Math.round(Math.pow(input, ++x))",
input : 36.565010597564445,
callback: function(n) {
console.log("number: ", n); // number: 1337
}
}).eval({
code : "][];.]\\ (*# ($(! ~",
onerror: function(ex) {
console.log("syntax error: ", ex); // syntax error: [error object]
}
}).eval({
code : '"foo"+input',
input : "bar",
callback: function(str) {
console.log("string: ", str); // string: foobar
}
}).eval({
code : "({q:1, w:2})",
callback: function(obj) {
console.log("object: ", obj); // object: object q=1 w=2
}
}).eval({
code : "[1, 2, 3].concat(input)",
input : [4, 5, 6],
callback: function(arr) {
console.log("array: ", arr); // array: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
}
}).eval({
code : "function x(z){this.y=z;};new x(input)",
input : 4,
callback: function(x) {
console.log("new x: ", x); // new x: object y=4
}
});
An improved version of RyanOHara's web workers sandbox code, in a single file (no extra eval.js file is necessary).
function safeEval(untrustedCode)
{
return new Promise(function (resolve, reject)
{
var blobURL = URL.createObjectURL(new Blob([
"(",
function ()
{
var _postMessage = postMessage;
var _addEventListener = addEventListener;
(function (obj)
{
"use strict";
var current = obj;
var keepProperties =
[
// Required
'Object', 'Function', 'Infinity', 'NaN', 'undefined', 'caches', 'TEMPORARY', 'PERSISTENT',
// Optional, but trivial to get back
'Array', 'Boolean', 'Number', 'String', 'Symbol',
// Optional
'Map', 'Math', 'Set',
];
do
{
Object.getOwnPropertyNames(current).forEach(function (name)
{
if (keepProperties.indexOf(name) === -1)
{
delete current[name];
}
});
current = Object.getPrototypeOf(current);
}
while (current !== Object.prototype)
;
})(this);
_addEventListener("message", function (e)
{
var f = new Function("", "return (" + e.data + "\n);");
_postMessage(f());
});
}.toString(),
")()"],
{type: "application/javascript"}));
var worker = new Worker(blobURL);
URL.revokeObjectURL(blobURL);
worker.onmessage = function (evt)
{
worker.terminate();
resolve(evt.data);
};
worker.onerror = function (evt)
{
reject(new Error(evt.message));
};
worker.postMessage(untrustedCode);
setTimeout(function ()
{
worker.terminate();
reject(new Error('The worker timed out.'));
}, 1000);
});
}
Test it:
https://jsfiddle.net/kp0cq6yw/
var promise = safeEval("1+2+3");
promise.then(function (result) {
alert(result);
});
It should output 6 (tested in Chrome and Firefox).
As mentioned in other responces, it's enough to jail the code in a sandboxed iframe (without sending it to the server-side) and communicate with messages.
I would suggest to take a look at a small library I created mostly because of the need to providing some API to the untrusted code, just like as described in the question: there's an opportunity to export the particular set of functions right into the sandbox where the untrusted code runs. And there's also a demo which executes the code submitted by a user in a sandbox:
http://asvd.github.io/jailed/demos/web/console/
I think that js.js is worth mentioning here. It's a JavaScript interpreter written in JavaScript.
It's about 200 times slower than native JavaScript, but its nature makes it a perfect sandbox environment. Another drawback is its size – almost 600 KB, which may be acceptable for desktops in some cases, but not for mobile devices.
All the browser vendors and the HTML5 specification are working towards an actual sandbox property to allow sandboxed iframes -- but it's still limited to iframe granularity.
In general, no degree of regular expressions, etc. can safely sanitise arbitrary user provided JavaScript as it degenerates to the halting problem :-/
An ugly way, but maybe this works for you:
I took all the globals and redefined them in the sandbox scope, as well I added the strict mode so they can't get the global object using an anonymous function.
function construct(constructor, args) {
function F() {
return constructor.apply(this, args);
}
F.prototype = constructor.prototype;
return new F();
}
// Sanboxer
function sandboxcode(string, inject) {
"use strict";
var globals = [];
for (var i in window) {
// <--REMOVE THIS CONDITION
if (i != "console")
// REMOVE THIS CONDITION -->
globals.push(i);
}
globals.push('"use strict";\n'+string);
return construct(Function, globals).apply(inject ? inject : {});
}
sandboxcode('console.log( this, window, top , self, parent, this["jQuery"], (function(){return this;}()));');
// => Object {} undefined undefined undefined undefined undefined undefined
console.log("return of this", sandboxcode('return this;', {window:"sanboxed code"}));
// => Object {window: "sanboxed code"}
https://gist.github.com/alejandrolechuga/9381781
An independent JavaScript interpreter is more likely to yield a robust sandbox than a caged version of the built-in browser implementation.
Ryan has already mentioned js.js, but a more up-to-date project is JS-Interpreter. The documentation covers how to expose various functions to the interpreter, but its scope is otherwise very limited.
As of 2019, vm2 looks like the most popular and most regularly-updated solution to running JavaScript in Node.js. I'm not aware of a front-end solution.
With NISP you'll be able to do sandboxed evaluation.
Though the expression you write is not exactly JavaScript code, instead you'll write S-expressions. It is ideal for simple DSLs that doesn't demand extensive programming.
Suppose you have code to execute:
var sCode = "alert(document)";
Now, suppose you want to execute it in a sandbox:
new Function("window", "with(window){" + sCode + "}")({});
These two lines when executed will fail, because "alert" function is not available from the "sandbox"
And now you want to expose a member of window object with your functionality:
new Function("window", "with(window){" + sCode + "}")({
'alert':function(sString){document.title = sString}
});
Indeed you can add quotes escaping and make other polishing, but I guess the idea is clear.
Where is this user JavaScript code coming from?
There is not much you can do about a user embedding code into your page and then calling it from their browser (see Greasemonkey). It's just something browsers do.
However, if you store the script in a database, then retrieve it and eval() it, then you can clean up the script before it is run.
Examples of code that removes all window. and document. references:
eval(
unsafeUserScript
.replace(/\/\/.+\n|\/\*.*\*\/, '') // Clear all comments
.replace(/\s(window|document)\s*[\;\)\.]/, '') // Removes window. Or window; or window)
)
This tries to prevent the following from being executed (not tested):
window.location = 'http://example.com';
var w = window;
There are a lot of limitations you would have to apply to the unsafe user script. Unfortunately, there isn't any 'sandbox container' available for JavaScript.
I've been working on a simplistic JavaScript sandbox for letting users build applets for my site. Although I still face some challenges with allowing DOM access (parentNode just won't let me keep things secure =/), my approach was just to redefine the window object with some of its useful/harmless members, and then eval() the user code with this redefined window as the default scope.
My "core" code goes like this... (I'm not showing it entirely ;)
function Sandbox(parent){
this.scope = {
window: {
alert: function(str){
alert("Overriden Alert: " + str);
},
prompt: function(message, defaultValue){
return prompt("Overriden Prompt:" + message, defaultValue);
},
document: null,
.
.
.
.
}
};
this.execute = function(codestring){
// Here some code sanitizing, please
with (this.scope) {
with (window) {
eval(codestring);
}
}
};
}
So, I can instantiate a Sandbox and use its execute() function to get code running. Also, all new declared variables within eval'd code will ultimately bound to the execute() scope, so there will not be clashing names or messing with existing code.
Although global objects will still be accessible, those which should remain unknown to the sandboxed code must be defined as proxies in the Sandbox::scope object.
You can wrap the user's code in a function that redefines forbidden objects as parameters -- these would then be undefined when called:
(function (alert) {
alert ("uh oh!"); // User code
}) ();
Of course, clever attackers can get around this by inspecting the JavaScript DOM and finding a non-overridden object that contains a reference to the window.
Another idea is scanning the user's code using a tool like JSLint. Make sure it's set to have no preset variables (or: only variables you want), and then if any globals are set or accessed do not let the user's script be used. Again, it might be vulnerable to walking the DOM -- objects that the user can construct using literals might have implicit references to the window object that could be accessed to escape the sandbox.

Categories

Resources