Mixing
safe console inside a shiny application
I am currently developing shiny applications that aim to teach R via interactive courses. For that purpose, I have already worked with multiple-choice questions and free-text questions. Now I want to tackle questions where the users of the app (students) can enter their own R code in a text field and run it.
My current implementation basically uses eval inside an observer.
## evaluate the users expression and store the results.
observeEvent(input$evluate, {
reactives$result <- eval(parse(text = input$console_in))
})
This implementation has serious drawbacks when it comes to security since users can insert and run arbitrary codes on the server.
- What are the best practices to make the console safer?
- How should the working directory be specified during the evaluation?
It is planned to release an open-source version of this software at some point. Therefore, I would prefer a solution which is not platform dependent and which doesn't complicate the deployment of the application.
r security shiny
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
add a comment |
I am currently developing shiny applications that aim to teach R via interactive courses. For that purpose, I have already worked with multiple-choice questions and free-text questions. Now I want to tackle questions where the users of the app (students) can enter their own R code in a text field and run it.
My current implementation basically uses eval inside an observer.
## evaluate the users expression and store the results.
observeEvent(input$evluate, {
reactives$result <- eval(parse(text = input$console_in))
})
This implementation has serious drawbacks when it comes to security since users can insert and run arbitrary codes on the server.
- What are the best practices to make the console safer?
- How should the working directory be specified during the evaluation?
It is planned to release an open-source version of this software at some point. Therefore, I would prefer a solution which is not platform dependent and which doesn't complicate the deployment of the application.
r security shiny
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
add a comment |
I am currently developing shiny applications that aim to teach R via interactive courses. For that purpose, I have already worked with multiple-choice questions and free-text questions. Now I want to tackle questions where the users of the app (students) can enter their own R code in a text field and run it.
My current implementation basically uses eval inside an observer.
## evaluate the users expression and store the results.
observeEvent(input$evluate, {
reactives$result <- eval(parse(text = input$console_in))
})
This implementation has serious drawbacks when it comes to security since users can insert and run arbitrary codes on the server.
- What are the best practices to make the console safer?
- How should the working directory be specified during the evaluation?
It is planned to release an open-source version of this software at some point. Therefore, I would prefer a solution which is not platform dependent and which doesn't complicate the deployment of the application.
r security shiny
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
I am currently developing shiny applications that aim to teach R via interactive courses. For that purpose, I have already worked with multiple-choice questions and free-text questions. Now I want to tackle questions where the users of the app (students) can enter their own R code in a text field and run it.
My current implementation basically uses eval inside an observer.
## evaluate the users expression and store the results.
observeEvent(input$evluate, {
reactives$result <- eval(parse(text = input$console_in))
})
This implementation has serious drawbacks when it comes to security since users can insert and run arbitrary codes on the server.
- What are the best practices to make the console safer?
- How should the working directory be specified during the evaluation?
It is planned to release an open-source version of this software at some point. Therefore, I would prefer a solution which is not platform dependent and which doesn't complicate the deployment of the application.
r security shiny
r security shiny
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
edited Jan 2 at 17:26
Gregor de Cillia
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
asked Jan 1 at 22:08
Gregor de CilliaGregor de Cillia
4,0341923
4,0341923
add a comment |
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
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oldest
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For evaluating arbitrary code, I like the whitelisting approach where you put all known and safe functions in an empty environment to be evaluated in. I think that's the simple and easy solution vs. blacklisting functions or trying to sandbox outside of R. Here's a much better answer with examples: Safely evaluating arithmetic expressions in R?
Alternatively, here's a POC package that takes a blacklisting approach: https://github.com/Rapporter/sandboxR
All other sandboxing methods I can think of are Linux specific. There's https://github.com/jeroen/RAppArmor which uses AppArmor to sandbox at the OS level. And then using Docker or Linux containers to run sandboxed code.
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
add a comment |
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1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
For evaluating arbitrary code, I like the whitelisting approach where you put all known and safe functions in an empty environment to be evaluated in. I think that's the simple and easy solution vs. blacklisting functions or trying to sandbox outside of R. Here's a much better answer with examples: Safely evaluating arithmetic expressions in R?
Alternatively, here's a POC package that takes a blacklisting approach: https://github.com/Rapporter/sandboxR
All other sandboxing methods I can think of are Linux specific. There's https://github.com/jeroen/RAppArmor which uses AppArmor to sandbox at the OS level. And then using Docker or Linux containers to run sandboxed code.
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
add a comment |
For evaluating arbitrary code, I like the whitelisting approach where you put all known and safe functions in an empty environment to be evaluated in. I think that's the simple and easy solution vs. blacklisting functions or trying to sandbox outside of R. Here's a much better answer with examples: Safely evaluating arithmetic expressions in R?
Alternatively, here's a POC package that takes a blacklisting approach: https://github.com/Rapporter/sandboxR
All other sandboxing methods I can think of are Linux specific. There's https://github.com/jeroen/RAppArmor which uses AppArmor to sandbox at the OS level. And then using Docker or Linux containers to run sandboxed code.
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
add a comment |
For evaluating arbitrary code, I like the whitelisting approach where you put all known and safe functions in an empty environment to be evaluated in. I think that's the simple and easy solution vs. blacklisting functions or trying to sandbox outside of R. Here's a much better answer with examples: Safely evaluating arithmetic expressions in R?
Alternatively, here's a POC package that takes a blacklisting approach: https://github.com/Rapporter/sandboxR
All other sandboxing methods I can think of are Linux specific. There's https://github.com/jeroen/RAppArmor which uses AppArmor to sandbox at the OS level. And then using Docker or Linux containers to run sandboxed code.
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
For evaluating arbitrary code, I like the whitelisting approach where you put all known and safe functions in an empty environment to be evaluated in. I think that's the simple and easy solution vs. blacklisting functions or trying to sandbox outside of R. Here's a much better answer with examples: Safely evaluating arithmetic expressions in R?
Alternatively, here's a POC package that takes a blacklisting approach: https://github.com/Rapporter/sandboxR
All other sandboxing methods I can think of are Linux specific. There's https://github.com/jeroen/RAppArmor which uses AppArmor to sandbox at the OS level. And then using Docker or Linux containers to run sandboxed code.
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
answered Jan 2 at 14:59
greg Lgreg L
2,41911013
2,41911013
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
add a comment |
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
Thank you very much. For some reason I was just thinking about blacklisting and sandboxing but the whitelist approach seems best for my usecase. Since the apps are pedagogic, I don't mind limiting my users to a hand-selected set of functions and this security-layer seems really hard to get around.
– Gregor de Cillia
Jan 2 at 17:29
add a comment |
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