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Included review availability: This review used your included allowance. Your plan provides up to 8 included reviews per hour; 7 remain after this review. 📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughThe change adds an optional log-message escaping configuration for Autotools and Windows builds. When enabled, generated operator match messages and selected RuleMessage fields pass values through hex escaping. CI matrices and conditional regression fixtures cover enabled and legacy configurations. ChangesLog-message escaping
Priority: ➖ Normal Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes Change: Bug fix Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to The option preserves legacy logging by default, and no unresolved issue was established that would prevent merging after normal checks. Architecture SummaryArchitecture risk: 🟡 Medium · up to The change affects 3 systems. Changed systems: Architecture concerns Review detailsSystems and components
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🔵 Needs a closer look
The [ref] field remains unescaped and can still make textual RuleMessage output ambiguous.
Review effort: Lite
Findings: None
What changed in this PR
This pull request escapes request-derived values in textual rule and operator-match logs to prevent field-boundary ambiguity.
Changes:
- Adds escaping for dynamic log fields and operator parameters.
- Adds regression coverage for quotes, backslashes, delimiters, and control characters.
- Registers the new regression test.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
test/test-suite.in |
Registers the regression test. |
test/test-cases/regression/issue-3601.json |
Adds adversarial logging cases. |
src/rule_message.cc |
Escapes textual log fields. |
src/operators/operator.cc |
Escapes dynamic match-message values. |
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Hi @7acini, thanks for this PR.
Unfortunately this is a known issue, see my old comment, but then this was refused. I don't know (honestly: really don't know) is it a good idea to change the log format's behavior in this version - I mean after almost 10 years (since libmodsecurity3 is available with Nginx) all customers made their own logparser, and I don't know how this change brakes those parsers. I've already started to work on libmodsecurity4, where I want to change this behavior. Actually, my suggestions:
What do you think about that? |
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Hi @airween, thanks for the detailed feedback and for the historical context from #2854. I completely understand the concern about breaking existing log parsers after almost 10 years of stable behaviour in the 3.x series. That risk is real. I like both of your suggestions. Making the escaping configurable at build time (e.g. Would you prefer that approach, or would you rather keep this change for the upcoming libmodsecurity4 work? Happy to adjust the PR however you think is best. |
thank you,
I think if you would be able to add this feature with a configure options, then it would be nice to add test cases too. But those tests were depend on the configure options, and that's not easy - if you want to try, let's do that. I want to add this feature definitely to v4. |
7acini
changed the title
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Thanks, @airween. I implemented the configure-dependent approach in
I also built and ran
The PR description has been updated with the compatibility behavior and test details. I have left the PR as a draft while the new CI run completes. |
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The Windows failures from the previous run were caused by the CMake test-suite reader rejecting the Automake conditional in I fixed that in
Local CMake 4.4.3 configuration now completes in both modes. The default configuration registers only The Debian sid cppcheck failure seen in the previous run is unchanged from the prior commit and reports only pre-existing diagnostics outside this PR. The updated Windows and CMake-enabled CI jobs are now pending. |
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Inline comments:
Review comments at @src/operators/operator.cc:
- Around line 126-127: Update the logging expression in operator.cc so that,
when kEscapeLogMessage is enabled, it applies limitTo(100, ...) to the original
value before passing it to toHexIfNeeded. Keep the disabled branch unchanged,
including its existing limit and escaping behavior.
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.github/workflows/ci.yml.github/workflows/ci_new.ymlbuild/win32/CMakeLists.txtbuild/win32/config.h.cmakeconfigure.acsrc/operators/operator.ccsrc/rule_message.cctest/test-cases/regression/issue-3601-legacy.jsontest/test-cases/regression/issue-3601.jsontest/test-suite.in
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Add opt-in escaping for textual RuleMessage log fields
Problem
RuleMessage::log()formats textual log fields as[name "value"], but somerequest-derived values were inserted without escaping quotation marks or
backslashes. A value containing
" ] [name "could therefore make one valuelook like multiple fields to a downstream parser. Control characters were
already hex-escaped, so this does not demonstrate newline injection.
The same ambiguity was present in the default operator match message, before
the bracketed rule details. This behavior was originally reported by
@amitu314 in #3601.
Fix
Add opt-in build-time escaping:
--enable-log-message-escape-DLOG_MESSAGE_ESCAPE=ONBoth build systems leave the option disabled by default so existing v3
installations retain byte-compatible textual log output and downstream
parsers are not changed unexpectedly.
When enabled, the existing
toHexIfNeeded(value, true)behavior is applied atvalue boundaries for the textual fields that can receive request or connector
data: the rule message, request hostname, decoded URI, transaction ID, and the
equivalent error-log tail values. Request-derived variable names and values,
plus macro-expanded operator parameters, are handled the same way when the
default match message is constructed.
The completed log line is still passed through the default control-character
escaping only. This preserves structural delimiter quotes and avoids escaping
the
\xHHsequences produced for individual values a second time.JSON serialization is unchanged; it continues to use YAJL's native JSON
string handling.
Tests
marks, backslashes, field-like delimiters, CR/LF, and literal text resembling
\x22.output, while enabled builds validate escaped output.
the shared Automake test list.
in both current v3 workflows.
fix on
2dada4ce3d44f438519fa5f1cd52c31848da0589and passes when enabled.make check -j4— 5,027 passed, 18 skipped,0 failed.
--enable-log-message-escapeAutotools build:make check -j4— 5,027passed, 18 skipped, 0 failed.
corresponding
issue-3601-legacyorissue-3601CTest case.Limitations and compatibility
The core library API reproduction is confirmed. The current ModSecurity-nginx
connector routes the request hostname and unparsed URI into the relevant API,
and supports variable-based transaction IDs, but no live HTTP-server test was
performed. Therefore this change does not claim that every tested byte is
accepted over the network by a real connector/server combination.
The default v3 behavior is unchanged. Enabling the new option intentionally
changes textual error/server log output, including legacy audit-log Part H,
for values containing quotation marks or backslashes. Consumers enabling it
must account for the escaped value representation. It does not establish a WAF
bypass, code execution, or downstream SIEM compromise.
References #3601.
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