spinframework / spinframework/spin

Add support for overriding connect address

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#3,550 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
Rust
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Description

This is primarily useful in testing or private networking scenarios where the client wants to nominally connect to a host but use a different address than DNS would resolve, e.g.:

  • An override is configured for api.example.com -> test-api.example.com
  • Guest makes a request to https://api.example.com
  • TCP connection is established to test-api.example.com
  • TLS establishment uses api.example.com as the server name
  • HTTP Host header is api.example.com

This effect is sometimes achieved instead by overriding the HTTP Host header, but this will typically cause server certificate validation to fail which then requires separate TLS config changes (often just e.g. --insecure).

I see two (not necessarily exclusive) approaches:

Override in runtime config

Something like:

[outbound_networking.hosts."api.example.com"]
override_resolution = "test-api.example.com"

This would be relatively straightforward to implement and would cover many use cases but might not work well where more dynamic configuration is needed.

Override in the guest

I think the most "component-y" way to implement this would be with a new WIT interface(s) that would be sort of "extension(s)" to WASI:

package spin:wasi-extensions;

interface http-extensions {
  use wasi:http/types@0.3.0-rc-2026-03-15.{request};

  set-connect-host(request: borrow<request>, connect-host: string) -> result<_, some-error>;
}

The connect-host would need to be covered by an allowed_outbound_hosts entry or some new manifest (allowed_host_overrides?) and/or runtime config allowlist mechanism.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

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 by comparing the runtime-config and guest-extension approaches described here, including how outbound-host allowlists, TLS server names, and HTTP Host handling would interact. Define the selected scope and validation criteria; done when one approach is specified sufficiently to implement and its testing strategy is agreed.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust, wasm
Domain
networking, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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