OpenFn / OpenFn/lightning

Handle CSRF token error gracefully

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bug Monitoring Sentry
Dominant language
Elixir
Stars
296
Forks
86
Avg merge
1d 13h
Merged PRs (30d)
50

Description

Describe the bug

Submitting the login form (POST /users/log_in) with a stale CSRF token raises Plug.CSRFProtection.InvalidCSRFTokenError and the user sees the default 403 error page.

The most common trigger for real users: log in, click the browser back button, the cached login form is re-submitted with the pre-login CSRF token. Lightning's UserAuth.new_session/2 calls configure_session(renew: true) |> clear_session(), so the old token no longer matches the (new, empty) session.

You can recreate this by opening the login page on two different tabs and then login on each page without refreshing. Currently, you get this Forbidden page

Image

Sentry

LIGHTNING-NS — 3,397 events, 94 users, ongoing since 2024-11-11.
https://openfn.sentry.io/issues/6056897474/

Bot scanners account for a large share (top 2 IPs = ~54% of recent introspectable events, heavily concentrated Chrome 131 fingerprint, scans of bare GCP IPs), but real users hit it too.

Version number

v2.16.5

Expected behavior

When CSRF validation fails on a browser request, redirect to /users/log_in with a flash like "Your session expired. Please try again." instead of rendering the 403 page.

Proposed fix

  1. Add LightningWeb.Plugs.CSRFProtectionWithFallback that wraps Plug.CSRFProtection.call/2 in try/rescue and on InvalidCSRFTokenError does put_flash |> redirect(to: ~p"/users/log_in") |> halt(). Use it in place of plug :protect_from_forgery in the :browser pipeline.
  2. Add Plug.CSRFProtection.InvalidCSRFTokenError to Lightning.SentryEventFilter @ignored_exceptions (lib/lightning/sentry_event_filter.ex) so any remaining occurrences (non-browser pipelines) stop creating Sentry noise.

The rescue is not a security regression — the token still fails validation, the request is still rejected, the response just becomes a 302 to a GET instead of a 403 page.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the :browser pipeline and the existing plug :protect_from_forgery entry point, then read lib/lightning/sentry_event_filter.ex. Implement the proposed CSRF fallback and add the exception to @ignored_exceptions; done means stale browser submissions redirect to /users/log_in with the session-expired flash while non-browser occurrences no longer create Sentry noise.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
elixir
Domain
authentication, backend, security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
72/100

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