]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/git.git/commitdiff
sideband: add options to allow more control sequences to be passed through
authorJohannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:26:12 +0000 (22:26 +0000)
committerJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:43:03 +0000 (15:43 -0800)
Even though control sequences that erase characters are quite juicy for
attack scenarios, where attackers are eager to hide traces of suspicious
activities, during the review of the side band sanitizing patch series
concerns were raised that there might be some legimitate scenarios where
Git server's `pre-receive` hooks use those sequences in a benign way.

Control sequences to move the cursor can likewise be used to hide tracks
by overwriting characters, and have been equally pointed out as having
legitimate users.

Let's add options to let users opt into passing through those ANSI
Escape sequences: `sideband.allowControlCharacters` now supports also
`cursor` and `erase`, and it parses the value as a comma-separated list.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Documentation/config/sideband.txt
sideband.c
t/t5409-colorize-remote-messages.sh

index b55c73726fe2c76a4188a289a0e11aad844477af..2bf04262840b020e9a46283eb0a0796527bb8a6c 100644 (file)
@@ -2,13 +2,20 @@ sideband.allowControlCharacters::
        By default, control characters that are delivered via the sideband
        are masked, except ANSI color sequences. This prevents potentially
        unwanted ANSI escape sequences from being sent to the terminal. Use
-       this config setting to override this behavior:
+       this config setting to override this behavior (the value can be
+       a comma-separated list of the following keywords):
 +
 --
        `default`::
        `color`::
                Allow ANSI color sequences, line feeds and horizontal tabs,
                but mask all other control characters. This is the default.
+       `cursor:`:
+               Allow control sequences that move the cursor. This is
+               disabled by default.
+       `erase`::
+               Allow control sequences that erase charactrs. This is
+               disabled by default.
        `false`::
                Mask all control characters other than line feeds and
                horizontal tabs.
index f4bcdcaf9b61a3adf713af2e91dd64de66419769..a8568b8b64019e219db2f1308c278cdbcb86fd21 100644 (file)
@@ -28,9 +28,43 @@ static struct keyword_entry keywords[] = {
 static enum {
        ALLOW_NO_CONTROL_CHARACTERS  = 0,
        ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES   = 1<<0,
+       ALLOW_ANSI_CURSOR_MOVEMENTS  = 1<<1,
+       ALLOW_ANSI_ERASE             = 1<<2,
        ALLOW_DEFAULT_ANSI_SEQUENCES = ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES,
-       ALLOW_ALL_CONTROL_CHARACTERS = 1<<1,
-} allow_control_characters = ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES;
+       ALLOW_ALL_CONTROL_CHARACTERS = 1<<3,
+} allow_control_characters = ALLOW_DEFAULT_ANSI_SEQUENCES;
+
+static inline int skip_prefix_in_csv(const char *value, const char *prefix,
+                                    const char **out)
+{
+       if (!skip_prefix(value, prefix, &value) ||
+           (*value && *value != ','))
+               return 0;
+       *out = value + !!*value;
+       return 1;
+}
+
+static void parse_allow_control_characters(const char *value)
+{
+       allow_control_characters = ALLOW_NO_CONTROL_CHARACTERS;
+       while (*value) {
+               if (skip_prefix_in_csv(value, "default", &value))
+                       allow_control_characters |= ALLOW_DEFAULT_ANSI_SEQUENCES;
+               else if (skip_prefix_in_csv(value, "color", &value))
+                       allow_control_characters |= ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES;
+               else if (skip_prefix_in_csv(value, "cursor", &value))
+                       allow_control_characters |= ALLOW_ANSI_CURSOR_MOVEMENTS;
+               else if (skip_prefix_in_csv(value, "erase", &value))
+                       allow_control_characters |= ALLOW_ANSI_ERASE;
+               else if (skip_prefix_in_csv(value, "true", &value))
+                       allow_control_characters = ALLOW_ALL_CONTROL_CHARACTERS;
+               else if (skip_prefix_in_csv(value, "false", &value))
+                       allow_control_characters = ALLOW_NO_CONTROL_CHARACTERS;
+               else
+                       warning(_("unrecognized value for `sideband."
+                                 "allowControlCharacters`: '%s'"), value);
+       }
+}
 
 /* Returns a color setting (GIT_COLOR_NEVER, etc). */
 static int use_sideband_colors(void)
@@ -54,13 +88,8 @@ static int use_sideband_colors(void)
                if (git_config_get_string_tmp("sideband.allowcontrolcharacters",
                                              &value))
                        ; /* huh? `get_maybe_bool()` returned -1 */
-               else if (!strcmp(value, "default"))
-                       allow_control_characters = ALLOW_DEFAULT_ANSI_SEQUENCES;
-               else if (!strcmp(value, "color"))
-                       allow_control_characters = ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES;
                else
-                       warning(_("unrecognized value for `sideband."
-                                 "allowControlCharacters`: '%s'"), value);
+                       parse_allow_control_characters(value);
                break;
        default:
                break; /* not configured */
@@ -93,7 +122,7 @@ void list_config_color_sideband_slots(struct string_list *list, const char *pref
                list_config_item(list, prefix, keywords[i].keyword);
 }
 
-static int handle_ansi_color_sequence(struct strbuf *dest, const char *src, int n)
+static int handle_ansi_sequence(struct strbuf *dest, const char *src, int n)
 {
        int i;
 
@@ -105,14 +134,47 @@ static int handle_ansi_color_sequence(struct strbuf *dest, const char *src, int
         * These are part of the Select Graphic Rendition sequences which
         * contain more than just color sequences, for more details see
         * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#SGR.
+        *
+        * The cursor movement sequences are:
+        *
+        * ESC [ n A - Cursor up n lines (CUU)
+        * ESC [ n B - Cursor down n lines (CUD)
+        * ESC [ n C - Cursor forward n columns (CUF)
+        * ESC [ n D - Cursor back n columns (CUB)
+        * ESC [ n E - Cursor next line, beginning (CNL)
+        * ESC [ n F - Cursor previous line, beginning (CPL)
+        * ESC [ n G - Cursor to column n (CHA)
+        * ESC [ n ; m H - Cursor position (row n, col m) (CUP)
+        * ESC [ n ; m f - Same as H (HVP)
+        *
+        * The sequences to erase characters are:
+        *
+        *
+        * ESC [ 0 J - Clear from cursor to end of screen (ED)
+        * ESC [ 1 J - Clear from cursor to beginning of screen (ED)
+        * ESC [ 2 J - Clear entire screen (ED)
+        * ESC [ 3 J - Clear entire screen + scrollback (ED) - xterm extension
+        * ESC [ 0 K - Clear from cursor to end of line (EL)
+        * ESC [ 1 K - Clear from cursor to beginning of line (EL)
+        * ESC [ 2 K - Clear entire line (EL)
+        * ESC [ n M - Delete n lines (DL)
+        * ESC [ n P - Delete n characters (DCH)
+        * ESC [ n X - Erase n characters (ECH)
+        *
+        * For a comprehensive list of common ANSI Escape sequences, see
+        * https://www.xfree86.org/current/ctlseqs.html
         */
 
-       if (allow_control_characters != ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES ||
-           n < 3 || src[0] != '\x1b' || src[1] != '[')
+       if (n < 3 || src[0] != '\x1b' || src[1] != '[')
                return 0;
 
        for (i = 2; i < n; i++) {
-               if (src[i] == 'm') {
+               if (((allow_control_characters & ALLOW_ANSI_COLOR_SEQUENCES) &&
+                    src[i] == 'm') ||
+                   ((allow_control_characters & ALLOW_ANSI_CURSOR_MOVEMENTS) &&
+                    strchr("ABCDEFGHf", src[i])) ||
+                   ((allow_control_characters & ALLOW_ANSI_ERASE) &&
+                    strchr("JKMPX", src[i]))) {
                        strbuf_add(dest, src, i + 1);
                        return i;
                }
@@ -127,7 +189,7 @@ static void strbuf_add_sanitized(struct strbuf *dest, const char *src, int n)
 {
        int i;
 
-       if (allow_control_characters == ALLOW_ALL_CONTROL_CHARACTERS) {
+       if ((allow_control_characters & ALLOW_ALL_CONTROL_CHARACTERS)) {
                strbuf_add(dest, src, n);
                return;
        }
@@ -136,7 +198,8 @@ static void strbuf_add_sanitized(struct strbuf *dest, const char *src, int n)
        for (; n && *src; src++, n--) {
                if (!iscntrl(*src) || *src == '\t' || *src == '\n') {
                        strbuf_addch(dest, *src);
-               } else if ((i = handle_ansi_color_sequence(dest, src, n))) {
+               } else if (allow_control_characters != ALLOW_NO_CONTROL_CHARACTERS &&
+                          (i = handle_ansi_sequence(dest, src, n))) {
                        src += i;
                        n -= i;
                } else {
index f34977b3323845e6ff07755cbeffef17286045de..c3e4e1436273f876e8cef46b2fd6eecd319f9220 100755 (executable)
@@ -129,4 +129,42 @@ test_expect_success 'disallow (color) control sequences in sideband' '
        test_file_not_empty actual
 '
 
+test_decode_csi() {
+       awk '{
+               while (match($0, /\033/) != 0) {
+                       printf "%sCSI ", substr($0, 1, RSTART-1);
+                       $0 = substr($0, RSTART + RLENGTH, length($0) - RSTART - RLENGTH + 1);
+               }
+               print
+       }'
+}
+
+test_expect_success 'control sequences in sideband allowed by default' '
+       write_script .git/color-me-surprised <<-\EOF &&
+       printf "error: \\033[31mcolor\\033[m\\033[Goverwrite\\033[Gerase\\033[K\\033?25l\\n" >&2
+       exec "$@"
+       EOF
+       test_config_global uploadPack.packObjectsHook ./color-me-surprised &&
+       test_commit need-at-least-one-commit-at-least &&
+
+       rm -rf throw-away &&
+       git clone --no-local . throw-away 2>stderr &&
+       test_decode_color <stderr >color-decoded &&
+       test_decode_csi <color-decoded >decoded &&
+       test_grep ! "CSI \\[K" decoded &&
+       test_grep ! "CSI \\[G" decoded &&
+       test_grep "\\^\\[?25l" decoded &&
+
+       rm -rf throw-away &&
+       git -c sideband.allowControlCharacters=erase,cursor,color \
+               clone --no-local . throw-away 2>stderr &&
+       test_decode_color <stderr >color-decoded &&
+       test_decode_csi <color-decoded >decoded &&
+       test_grep "RED" decoded &&
+       test_grep "CSI \\[K" decoded &&
+       test_grep "CSI \\[G" decoded &&
+       test_grep ! "\\^\\[\\[K" decoded &&
+       test_grep ! "\\^\\[\\[G" decoded
+'
+
 test_done