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Derek Allard404e35d2007-08-07 01:00:45 +00005<title>CodeIgniter User Guide : Security</title>
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Derek Allard3d879d52008-01-18 19:41:32 +000019<meta name='author' content='ExpressionEngine Dev Team' />
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +000020<meta name='description' content='CodeIgniter User Guide' />
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Derek Allard39b622d2008-01-16 21:10:09 +000031<td><h1>CodeIgniter User Guide Version 1.6.0</h1></td>
adminc0d5d522006-10-30 19:40:35 +000032<td id="breadcrumb_right"><a href="../toc.html">Table of Contents Page</a></td>
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Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +000043<a href="http://www.codeigniter.com/">CodeIgniter Home</a> &nbsp;&#8250;&nbsp;
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +000044<a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> &nbsp;&#8250;&nbsp;
45Security
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Derek Allardbc030912007-06-24 18:25:29 +000047<td id="searchbox"><form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search"><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" id="as_sitesearch" value="codeigniter.com/user_guide/" />Search User Guide&nbsp; <input type="text" class="input" style="width:200px;" name="q" id="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="" />&nbsp;<input type="submit" class="submit" name="sa" value="Go" /></form></td>
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57
58<h1>Security</h1>
59
60<p>This page describes some "best practices" regarding web security, and details
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +000061CodeIgniter's internal security features.</p>
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63
64<h2>URI Security</h2>
65
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +000066<p>CodeIgniter is fairly restrictive regarding which characters it allows in your URI strings in order to help
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +000067minimize the possibility that malicious data can be passed to your application. URIs may only contain the following:
68</p>
69
70<ul>
71<li>Alpha-numeric text</li>
72<li>Tilde: ~ </li>
73<li>Period: .</li>
74<li>Colon: :</li>
75<li>Underscore: _</li>
76<li>Dash: -</li>
77</ul>
78
79<h2>GET, POST, and COOKIE Data</h2>
80
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +000081<p>GET data is simply disallowed by CodeIgniter since the system utilizes URI segments rather than traditional URL query strings (unless
admine334c472006-10-21 19:44:22 +000082you have the query string option enabled in your config file). The global GET
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +000083array is <strong>unset</strong> by the Input class during system initialization.</p>
84
85<h2>Register_globals</h2>
86
87<p>During system initialization all global variables are unset, except those found in the $_POST and $_COOKIE arrays. The unsetting
88routine is effectively the same as register_globals = off.</p>
89
90
91<h2>magic_quotes_runtime</h2>
92
93<p>The magic_quotes_runtime directive is turned off during system initialization so that you don't have to remove slashes when
94retrieving data from your database.</p>
95
admin78ce3cc2006-10-02 02:58:03 +000096<h1>Best Practices</h1>
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +000097
admine334c472006-10-21 19:44:22 +000098<p>Before accepting any data into your application, whether it be POST data from a form submission, COOKIE data, URI data,
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +000099XML-RPC data, or even data from the SERVER array, you are encouraged to practice this three step approach:</p>
100
101<ol>
102
103<li>Filter the data as if it were tainted.</li>
104<li>Validate the data to ensure it conforms to the correct type, length, size, etc. (sometimes this step can replace step one)</li>
105<li>Escape the data before submitting it into your database.</li>
106</ol>
107
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +0000108CodeIgniter provides the following functions to assist in this process:</p>
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000109
110<ul>
111
112<li><h2>XSS Filtering</h2>
113
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +0000114<p>CodeIgniter comes with a Cross Site Scripting filter. This filter looks for commonly
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000115used techniques to embed malicious Javascript into your data, or other types of code that attempt to hijack cookies
admine334c472006-10-21 19:44:22 +0000116or do other malicious things. The XSS Filter is described <a href="../libraries/input.html">here</a>.
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000117</p>
118</li>
119
120<li><h2>Validate the data</h2>
121
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +0000122<p>CodeIgniter has a <a href="../libraries/validation.html">Validation Class</a> that assists you in validating, filtering, and prepping
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000123your data.</p>
124</li>
125
126<li><h2>Escape all data before database insertion</h2>
127
128<p>Never insert information into your database without escaping it. Please see the section that discusses
admin58083462006-09-24 17:58:27 +0000129<a href="../database/queries.html">queries</a> for more information.</p>
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000130
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Derek Allardc6441282007-07-04 23:54:32 +0000149</p>
Derek Allardd2df9bc2007-04-15 17:41:17 +0000150<p><a href="http://www.codeigniter.com">CodeIgniter</a> &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; Copyright &#169; 2007 &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; <a href="http://ellislab.com/">Ellislab, Inc.</a></p>
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