Related
Okay, I have a page on and on this page I have an iframe. What I need to do is on the iframe page, find out what the URL of the main page is.
I have searched around and I know that this is not possible if my iframe page is on a different domain, as that is cross-site scripting. But everywhere I've read says that if the iframe page is on the same domain as the parent page, it should work if I do for instance:
parent.document.location
parent.window.document.location
parent.window.location
parent.document.location.href
... or other similar combos, as there seems to be multiple ways to get the same info.
Anyways, so here's the problem. My iframe is on the same domain as the main page, but it is not on the same SUB domain. So for instance I have
http:// www.mysite.com/pageA.html
and then my iframe URL is
http:// qa-www.mysite.com/pageB.html
When I try to grab the URL from pageB.html (the iframe page), I keep getting the same access denied error. So it appears that even sub-domains count as cross-site scripting, is that correct, or am I doing something wrong?
Yes, accessing parent page's URL is not allowed if the iframe and the main page are not in the same (sub)domain. However, if you just need the URL of the main page (i.e. the browser URL), you can try this:
var url = (window.location != window.parent.location)
? document.referrer
: document.location.href;
Note:
window.parent.location is allowed; it avoids the security error in the OP, which is caused by accessing the href property: window.parent.location.href causes "Blocked a frame with origin..."
document.referrer refers to "the URI of the page that linked to this page." This may not return the containing document if some other source is what determined the iframe location, for example:
Container iframe # Domain 1
Sends child iframe to Domain 2
But in the child iframe... Domain 2 redirects to Domain 3 (i.e. for authentication, maybe SAML), and then Domain 3 directs back to Domain 2 (i.e. via form submission(), a standard SAML technique)
For the child iframe the document.referrer will be Domain 3, not the containing Domain 1
document.location refers to "a Location object, which contains information about the URL of the document"; presumably the current document, that is, the iframe currently open. When window.location === window.parent.location, then the iframe's href is the same as the containing parent's href.
I just discovered a workaround for this problem that is so simple, and yet I haven't found any discussions anywhere that mention it. It does require control of the parent frame.
In your iFrame, say you want this iframe: src="http://www.example.com/mypage.php"
Well, instead of HTML to specify the iframe, use a javascript to build the HTML for your iframe, get the parent url through javascript "at build time", and send it as a url GET parameter in the querystring of your src target, like so:
<script type="text/javascript">
url = parent.document.URL;
document.write('<iframe src="http://example.com/mydata/page.php?url=' + url + '"></iframe>');
</script>
Then, find yourself a javascript url parsing function that parses the url string to get the url variable you are after, in this case it's "url".
I found a great url string parser here:
http://www.netlobo.com/url_query_string_javascript.html
If your iframe is from another domain, (cross domain), you will simply need to use this:
var currentUrl = document.referrer;
and - here you've got the main url!
The following line will work: document.location.ancestorOrigins[0] this one returns the ancestor domain name.
You're correct. Subdomains are still considered separate domains when using iframes. It's possible to pass messages using postMessage(...), but other JS APIs are intentionally made inaccessible.
It's also still possible to get the URL depending on the context. See other answers for more details.
For pages on the same domain and different subdomain, you can set the document.domain property via javascript.
Both the parent frame and the iframe need to set their document.domain to something that is common betweeen them.
i.e.
www.foo.mydomain.com and api.foo.mydomain.com could each use either foo.mydomain.com or just mydomain.com and be compatible (no, you can't set them both to com, for security reasons...)
also, note that document.domain is a one way street. Consider running the following three statements in order:
// assume we're starting at www.foo.mydomain.com
document.domain = "foo.mydomain.com" // works
document.domain = "mydomain.com" // works
document.domain = "foo.mydomain.com" // throws a security exception
Modern browsers can also use window.postMessage to talk across origins, but it won't work in IE6.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.postMessage
Try it:
document.referrer
When you change you are in a iframe your host is "referrer".
There's a lot a answers to this question, and none of them are definitely the best in terms of support or reliability.
Options
window.location.ancestorOrigins[0] will get the parent url, but this api only works in chromium browsers (see support). this also supports nested iframes, where the bottom most child has access to the urls of each parent iframe.
document.referrer is the most common answer but is not always reliable
navigation inside of the iframe would show the last page instead of the parent frame url
redirects only show the most recent referrer to the current page
if the page reloads itself the referer becomes the page itself
http child with an https parent has an empty string for referrer
Things that don't work
window.parent.location.href. If the parent and the child are in different domains, this api is blocked by modern browsers (see here), and will throw an error.
Recommendation
If supported, I prefer window.location.ancestorOrigins[0]. document.referrer can work, but is less reliable, making it my fallback option. If you do use document referrer, try to call it on the first framed page load, before navigation or redirects, to get the parent address.
there is a cross browser script for get parent origin:
private getParentOrigin() {
const locationAreDisctint = (window.location !== window.parent.location);
const parentOrigin = ((locationAreDisctint ? document.referrer : document.location) || "").toString();
if (parentOrigin) {
return new URL(parentOrigin).origin;
}
const currentLocation = document.location;
if (currentLocation.ancestorOrigins && currentLocation.ancestorOrigins.length) {
return currentLocation.ancestorOrigins[0];
}
return "";
}
This code, should work on Chrome and Firefox.
var url = (window.location != window.parent.location) ? document.referrer: document.location;
I found that the above example suggested previously worked when the script was being executed in an iframe however it did not
retrieve the url when the script was executed outside of an iframe,
a slight adjustment was required:
var url = (window.location != window.parent.location) ? document.referrer: document.location.href;
I've had issues with this. If using a language like php when your page first loads in the iframe grab $_SERVER['HTTP_REFFERER'] and set it to a session variable.
This way when the page loads in the iframe you know the full parent url and query string of the page that loaded it. With cross browser security it's a bit of a headache counting on window.parent anything if you you different domains.
I've found in the cases where $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] doesn't work (I'm looking at you, Safari), $_SERVER['REDIRECT_SCRIPT_URI'] has been a useful backup.
Assuming you get to tell the parent page how to set up the iframe, to easily but insecurily get the full URL with a path and URL parameters, include referrerpolicy="unsafe-url" when specifying the iframe:
<iframe src="https://example.com/innersite" referrerpolicy="unsafe-url" title="My Title"></iframe>
Then you can get the full original URL with:
document.referrer
Many of the other answers only work when the iframe src is the same as the parent's domain.
Fallbacks:
In case there are security issues, you could do a fallback like https://stackoverflow.com/a/5697801/1226799 says where the parent explicitly sends its URL in a URL parameter for the iframe URL, but an attacker could easily fake that.
I believe you could also use message passing and check the origin of the event: https://stackoverflow.com/a/61548595/1226799
I couldnt get previous solution to work but I found out that if I set the iframe scr with for example http:otherdomain.com/page.htm?from=thisdomain.com/thisfolder then I could, in the iframe extract thisdomain.com/thisfolder by using following javascript:
var myString = document.location.toString();
var mySplitResult = myString.split("=");
fromString = mySplitResult[1];
The problem with the PHP $_SERVER['HTTP_REFFERER'] is that it gives the fully qualified page url of the page that brought you to the parent page. That's not the same as the parent page, itself. Worse, sometimes there is no http_referer, because the person typed in the url of the parent page. So, if I get to your parent page from yahoo.com, then yahoo.com becomes the http_referer, not your page.
In chrome it is possible to use location.ancestorOrigins
It will return all parent urls
This worked for me to access the iframe src url.
window.document.URL
I know his is super old but it blows my mind no one recommended just passing cookies from one domain to the other. As you are using subdomains you can share cookies from a base domain to all subdomains just by setting cookies to the url .basedomain.com
Then you can share whatever data you need through the cookies.
Get All Parent Iframe functions and HTML
var parent = $(window.frameElement).parent();
//alert(parent+"TESTING");
var parentElement=window.frameElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement;
var Ifram=parentElement.children;
var GetUframClass=Ifram[9].ownerDocument.activeElement.className;
var Decision_URLLl=parentElement.ownerDocument.activeElement.contentDocument.URL;
I wrote a content script that injects an iframe to any website (therefore different domain).
I need the parent website to send some information to the child iframe, however I couldn't find a way to do it.
The code
var targetFrame = $('#myIframe')[0];
targetFrame.contentWindow.postMessage('the message', '*');
Doesn't work somehow and i get a Cannot call method 'postMessage' of undefined error.
But then when I tried the same code directly in Chrome's console, it worked.
I had no trouble sending a postMessage from the child to the parent though but just need a way for the parent to send messages to the child iframe.
I recently wrote code that did postMessage to an iframe and I encountered quite a similar issue where it said contentWindow is undefined.
In my case, my iframe was not yet part of the DOM tree, it was a variable created by document.createElement('iframe').
Once I put it hidden (width and height 0px, visibility hidden) into the body of the page, contentWindow was no longer undefined and everything worked as expected.
I found the Mozilla Developer Network page for postMessage extremely useful when I was working on my project.
I've had success using the following library:
http://easyxdm.net/wp/
It doesn't require any flash/silverlight, only javascript. And it is compatible as far back as as IE6.
It took a little doing to get it up and running, but once it was things ran very smoothly.
Keep in mind that if the iFrame you're opening on the other domain uses a different protocol (HTTP vs. HTTPS) the browser will kick out a warning which prevents your script from running (unless the user says they will accept the risk). If you have access to both protocols it may be wise to host the contents of the iFrame on both HTTP and HTTPS and load the appropriate script accordingly.
Good luck!
You don't need to target contentWindow. Try this:
var targetFrame = $('#myIframe')[0];
targetFrame.postMessage('the message', '*');
So, the error message is the security restriction to access a parent frame or window from within an (i)frame from a different domain.
(Unsafe javascript attempt to access frame with URL xxx from frame with URL yyy. Domains, protocols, and ports must match).
However, there is no line shown in webkit or chrome from where this error is generated.
So how do I get a list of the lines that infringe upon this? I know I can just search, but does this apply to cookies as well (document.cookie, etc) ? Is there a list of things that are disallowed?
Edit: Also, what do I need to use instead of $(window.top)?
Thanks.
If you own all of the pages (the containing document and the iframe document) just stick some javascript in each of them to allow them to communicate happily:
document.domain = 'myDomain.com';
Any call from inside the frame to window instead of window.frames[my frame] will cause a violation unless you have the document.domain set to match the parent. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/document.domain
I have a simple html file. Using javascript I am opening a https link as a child window.
However, if I try to get any data say
var handler = window.open('https://abc.com','newWindow');
var title = handler.window.document.title;
Then it throws an exception saying
Permission denied for http://localhost to get property Window.document from https://abc.com
Can anyone help me out with this.
I don't really know if we are allowed to get data like that or not.
Thanks & Best Regards.
You are not allowed to access data in this way.
If you are a page on hostname A, you can open windows/frames on hostname B, but cannot in any way interact with them - for security reasons. Otherwise, I could open gmail in an iframe and find out your email address from the window title.
This restriction only applies if window A and window B have different hostnames (this includes protocol, host and port). So if you open iframes/windows on your own domain, this is not a problem.
Okay, I have a page on and on this page I have an iframe. What I need to do is on the iframe page, find out what the URL of the main page is.
I have searched around and I know that this is not possible if my iframe page is on a different domain, as that is cross-site scripting. But everywhere I've read says that if the iframe page is on the same domain as the parent page, it should work if I do for instance:
parent.document.location
parent.window.document.location
parent.window.location
parent.document.location.href
... or other similar combos, as there seems to be multiple ways to get the same info.
Anyways, so here's the problem. My iframe is on the same domain as the main page, but it is not on the same SUB domain. So for instance I have
http:// www.mysite.com/pageA.html
and then my iframe URL is
http:// qa-www.mysite.com/pageB.html
When I try to grab the URL from pageB.html (the iframe page), I keep getting the same access denied error. So it appears that even sub-domains count as cross-site scripting, is that correct, or am I doing something wrong?
Yes, accessing parent page's URL is not allowed if the iframe and the main page are not in the same (sub)domain. However, if you just need the URL of the main page (i.e. the browser URL), you can try this:
var url = (window.location != window.parent.location)
? document.referrer
: document.location.href;
Note:
window.parent.location is allowed; it avoids the security error in the OP, which is caused by accessing the href property: window.parent.location.href causes "Blocked a frame with origin..."
document.referrer refers to "the URI of the page that linked to this page." This may not return the containing document if some other source is what determined the iframe location, for example:
Container iframe # Domain 1
Sends child iframe to Domain 2
But in the child iframe... Domain 2 redirects to Domain 3 (i.e. for authentication, maybe SAML), and then Domain 3 directs back to Domain 2 (i.e. via form submission(), a standard SAML technique)
For the child iframe the document.referrer will be Domain 3, not the containing Domain 1
document.location refers to "a Location object, which contains information about the URL of the document"; presumably the current document, that is, the iframe currently open. When window.location === window.parent.location, then the iframe's href is the same as the containing parent's href.
I just discovered a workaround for this problem that is so simple, and yet I haven't found any discussions anywhere that mention it. It does require control of the parent frame.
In your iFrame, say you want this iframe: src="http://www.example.com/mypage.php"
Well, instead of HTML to specify the iframe, use a javascript to build the HTML for your iframe, get the parent url through javascript "at build time", and send it as a url GET parameter in the querystring of your src target, like so:
<script type="text/javascript">
url = parent.document.URL;
document.write('<iframe src="http://example.com/mydata/page.php?url=' + url + '"></iframe>');
</script>
Then, find yourself a javascript url parsing function that parses the url string to get the url variable you are after, in this case it's "url".
I found a great url string parser here:
http://www.netlobo.com/url_query_string_javascript.html
If your iframe is from another domain, (cross domain), you will simply need to use this:
var currentUrl = document.referrer;
and - here you've got the main url!
The following line will work: document.location.ancestorOrigins[0] this one returns the ancestor domain name.
You're correct. Subdomains are still considered separate domains when using iframes. It's possible to pass messages using postMessage(...), but other JS APIs are intentionally made inaccessible.
It's also still possible to get the URL depending on the context. See other answers for more details.
For pages on the same domain and different subdomain, you can set the document.domain property via javascript.
Both the parent frame and the iframe need to set their document.domain to something that is common betweeen them.
i.e.
www.foo.mydomain.com and api.foo.mydomain.com could each use either foo.mydomain.com or just mydomain.com and be compatible (no, you can't set them both to com, for security reasons...)
also, note that document.domain is a one way street. Consider running the following three statements in order:
// assume we're starting at www.foo.mydomain.com
document.domain = "foo.mydomain.com" // works
document.domain = "mydomain.com" // works
document.domain = "foo.mydomain.com" // throws a security exception
Modern browsers can also use window.postMessage to talk across origins, but it won't work in IE6.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.postMessage
Try it:
document.referrer
When you change you are in a iframe your host is "referrer".
There's a lot a answers to this question, and none of them are definitely the best in terms of support or reliability.
Options
window.location.ancestorOrigins[0] will get the parent url, but this api only works in chromium browsers (see support). this also supports nested iframes, where the bottom most child has access to the urls of each parent iframe.
document.referrer is the most common answer but is not always reliable
navigation inside of the iframe would show the last page instead of the parent frame url
redirects only show the most recent referrer to the current page
if the page reloads itself the referer becomes the page itself
http child with an https parent has an empty string for referrer
Things that don't work
window.parent.location.href. If the parent and the child are in different domains, this api is blocked by modern browsers (see here), and will throw an error.
Recommendation
If supported, I prefer window.location.ancestorOrigins[0]. document.referrer can work, but is less reliable, making it my fallback option. If you do use document referrer, try to call it on the first framed page load, before navigation or redirects, to get the parent address.
there is a cross browser script for get parent origin:
private getParentOrigin() {
const locationAreDisctint = (window.location !== window.parent.location);
const parentOrigin = ((locationAreDisctint ? document.referrer : document.location) || "").toString();
if (parentOrigin) {
return new URL(parentOrigin).origin;
}
const currentLocation = document.location;
if (currentLocation.ancestorOrigins && currentLocation.ancestorOrigins.length) {
return currentLocation.ancestorOrigins[0];
}
return "";
}
This code, should work on Chrome and Firefox.
var url = (window.location != window.parent.location) ? document.referrer: document.location;
I found that the above example suggested previously worked when the script was being executed in an iframe however it did not
retrieve the url when the script was executed outside of an iframe,
a slight adjustment was required:
var url = (window.location != window.parent.location) ? document.referrer: document.location.href;
I've had issues with this. If using a language like php when your page first loads in the iframe grab $_SERVER['HTTP_REFFERER'] and set it to a session variable.
This way when the page loads in the iframe you know the full parent url and query string of the page that loaded it. With cross browser security it's a bit of a headache counting on window.parent anything if you you different domains.
I've found in the cases where $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] doesn't work (I'm looking at you, Safari), $_SERVER['REDIRECT_SCRIPT_URI'] has been a useful backup.
Assuming you get to tell the parent page how to set up the iframe, to easily but insecurily get the full URL with a path and URL parameters, include referrerpolicy="unsafe-url" when specifying the iframe:
<iframe src="https://example.com/innersite" referrerpolicy="unsafe-url" title="My Title"></iframe>
Then you can get the full original URL with:
document.referrer
Many of the other answers only work when the iframe src is the same as the parent's domain.
Fallbacks:
In case there are security issues, you could do a fallback like https://stackoverflow.com/a/5697801/1226799 says where the parent explicitly sends its URL in a URL parameter for the iframe URL, but an attacker could easily fake that.
I believe you could also use message passing and check the origin of the event: https://stackoverflow.com/a/61548595/1226799
I couldnt get previous solution to work but I found out that if I set the iframe scr with for example http:otherdomain.com/page.htm?from=thisdomain.com/thisfolder then I could, in the iframe extract thisdomain.com/thisfolder by using following javascript:
var myString = document.location.toString();
var mySplitResult = myString.split("=");
fromString = mySplitResult[1];
The problem with the PHP $_SERVER['HTTP_REFFERER'] is that it gives the fully qualified page url of the page that brought you to the parent page. That's not the same as the parent page, itself. Worse, sometimes there is no http_referer, because the person typed in the url of the parent page. So, if I get to your parent page from yahoo.com, then yahoo.com becomes the http_referer, not your page.
In chrome it is possible to use location.ancestorOrigins
It will return all parent urls
This worked for me to access the iframe src url.
window.document.URL
I know his is super old but it blows my mind no one recommended just passing cookies from one domain to the other. As you are using subdomains you can share cookies from a base domain to all subdomains just by setting cookies to the url .basedomain.com
Then you can share whatever data you need through the cookies.
Get All Parent Iframe functions and HTML
var parent = $(window.frameElement).parent();
//alert(parent+"TESTING");
var parentElement=window.frameElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement;
var Ifram=parentElement.children;
var GetUframClass=Ifram[9].ownerDocument.activeElement.className;
var Decision_URLLl=parentElement.ownerDocument.activeElement.contentDocument.URL;