Re: SameSite issues in Safari Browser (reference #RM5975) - Mailing list pgadmin-hackers

Dave,

Please find below corrected faq details.

Category : Troubleshooting

Question : 

When I set new tab settings for query tool or schema-diff, I get "Connection to server lost" or "CSRF tokens do not match" on Safari versions >= 12

Answer:

<p>This has been seen mostly on Safari browser versions >= 12. It's reported that from v12 of CFNetwork/Safari/Webkit erroneously handle "Samesite=none" as the equivalent of "Samesite=strict". It means, Safari recognizes the SameSite option starting with version 12, but their implementation has a bug: It interprets invalid values as if SameSite=Strict had been specified, and for it only Strict and Lax are valid values, as the older specification did not yet specify None</p>

<p>To solve this issue, we need to override the SameSite security settings, for this, create a file called config_system.py (for location to create the file, refer <a href="https://www.pgadmin.org/docs/pgadmin4/development/config_py.html">The config.py file</a>). This file can be used to override any of the settings in config.py (which shouldn't be edited). The config_system.py should have the below code:</p>

<pre>
    SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE = None
    SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
</pre>
<p><i>Note that these changes are not recommended, and we highly recommend users to use a different browser until the issue gets resolved from Apple.</i>

Removed the OS specific condition to make it generic for all distributions.

Added a warning note at the last of the faq.

On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 4:33 PM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Hi

On Tue, Dec 1, 2020 at 5:51 PM Rahul Shirsat <rahul.shirsat@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Hi Dave,

Could you please add below FAQ point for SameSite Safari issue:

Question : 

When I set new tab settings for query tool or schema-diff, I get "Connection to server lost" or "CSRF tokens do not match" on Safari versions >= 12

Answer:

<p>This has been seen mostly on Safari browser versions >= 12. It's reported that from v12 of CFNetwork/Safari/Webkit erroneously handle "Samesite=none" as the equivalent of "Samesite=strict". It means, Safari recognizes the SameSite option starting with version 12, but their implementation has a bug: It interprets invalid values as if SameSite=Strict had been specified, and for it only Strict and Lax are valid values, as the older specification did not yet specify None</p>

<p>To solve this issue, we need to override the SameSite security settings, for this, create a file called config_system.py in the web/ directory of the installation, alongside the existing config.py. This file can be used to override any of the settings in config.py (which shouldn't be edited). The config_system.py should have the below code:</p>

We could certainly add something like that, though, config_system.py doesn't go alongside config.py so that part of the text needs fixing.

 

<pre>
import sys

# Targeting only macOS
if sys.platform.startswith('darwin'):
    SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE = None
    SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
</pre>

Do suggest or add any points if I am missing them.

And that is not going to work in Server mode, only Desktop.

 

Also, let me know once this is done, So that I will close the ticket.

--

Rahul Shirsat

Senior Software Engineer | EnterpriseDB Corporation.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 7:30 PM Rahul Shirsat <rahul.shirsat@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

This was the part of our internal quality testing, where it got encountered. Currently, none of the users have complained about this on their specific browser versions.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 5:12 PM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Hi

On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 7:12 AM Rahul Shirsat <rahul.shirsat@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Dave,

There are issues discussed on Apple forums, check this out:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/129064 - The latest comment by the user here is one month ago, meaning the issue is still not fixed yet.

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/658688 - Users facing this issue in v13.x 

Even webkit has confirmed about this issue : https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=198181 - Users facing this issue in v12.x

In that case, I think the answer (for now at least) is an FAQ, referencing those issues and explaining how to resolve the issue using config_system.py or by using a different browser.

Have we actually seen this issue in wild?

 

On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 6:57 PM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Hi

On Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 10:37 AM Rahul Shirsat <rahul.shirsat@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Hi Dave,

Due to SameSite security issues in Safari Browser, some of the pgadmin4 functionality isn't working (mostly the new tab functionality).

The affected Safari Browser versions (marked in red) currently tested upon are:

1. v11.1.2
2. v12.1
3. v12.1.1
4. 13.1
5. 14.0.1

Since v12, Safari have done some security fixes, due to which this issue has occurred. Strangely, the issue is not reproducible on v13, but reproducible on its successor i.e. v14

Possible solutions could be:

1. Reporting this to Safari & raising an RM for tracking purposes.
2. Suggesting Safari users to make below changes in config.py or config_distro for the work around:

SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE = None
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True

(As we aren't going through any cross-site cookie transfer, this can be a handy option - but still risky..)

I would suggest going with the 1st option or combination of both, but with caution.

Others must have come across this issue already. Is it a known bug, documented somewhere (ideally on apple.com)?

 

--

Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

--

Rahul Shirsat

Software Engineer | EnterpriseDB Corporation.

--

Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

--

Rahul Shirsat

Software Engineer | EnterpriseDB Corporation.

--

Rahul Shirsat

Software Engineer | EnterpriseDB Corporation.

--

Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

--

Rahul Shirsat

Software Engineer | EnterpriseDB Corporation.