Security values move into the Settings UI
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Operator: *"proxy hops defaults to 1 and should be in the settings UI not in the
envs, we need the security values to be in the UI."* Overrules the call I made
yesterday, and rule 25 is on your side — I argued deployment-topology, but the
operator has to be able to SEE what protects them, and reading a container's
environment is not seeing.

Six new settings in a **Security** group: trusted proxy hops (default 1), the
per-account and per-address sign-in limits with their shared window, and the
sign-up limit with its own. `THOUGHTSYNC_TRUSTED_PROXY_HOPS` is gone; the rate
limits are no longer hardcoded constants.

**The hard part was keeping the throttle cheap.** It consults these BEFORE opening
a database connection — deliberately, because a refused attempt is meant to cost
nothing, and the hop count is needed to know who is even asking. A query per
attempt would undo both. So there is a small cache seeded from the registry
defaults (the app works with no database at all, which is what the DB-free unit
lane relies on), loaded at boot, and refreshed on every settings save — the same
live-update contract `session_ttl_days` already had.

`SlidingWindow` now takes its limit and window as SUPPLIERS rather than values, so
a saved number applies to the next attempt instead of the next deploy.

**Bounds are rejected, not clamped.** A hop count of 99 would trust anything a
caller sent; a sign-in limit of 0 would lock every account out permanently. Both
now fail validation with a message naming the range, and the number input carries
min/max so the browser objects first. Silently storing a different number than the
one typed is how somebody ends up believing a protection is set to something it is
not.

`MAX_BUCKETS` stays a constant on purpose: it protects the limiter from itself
rather than the app from a caller, and there is no operator judgment to apply.

Two integration tests, because the whole point is the round trip: a dangerous
value refused, a legitimate one reaching the cache the throttle reads and
persisting; and every Security row reaching the admin payload with bounds and a
description that explains itself.
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-23 15:24:15 -04:00
parent a85c53ba2c
commit 09b5f874b6
11 changed files with 302 additions and 98 deletions
+39 -28
View File
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ came from, and either one can refuse it:
addresses the attempts arrive from.
- **The address** bounds the damage from one source spraying many accounts. It is
read from ``X-Forwarded-For``, counting in from the RIGHT by
``THOUGHTSYNC_TRUSTED_PROXY_HOPS`` so that only entries our own proxies wrote are
the **Trusted proxy hops** setting so that only entries our own proxies wrote are
believed — a forged header lands to the left of those and is never selected. It is
still the weaker of the two keys, because it depends on that setting matching the
deployment; the account key depends on nothing.
@@ -36,29 +36,18 @@ from __future__ import annotations
import time
from collections import deque
from collections.abc import Callable
from .settings import live
# Failed sign-ins tolerated per account before it stops answering, and for how long.
# Ten is comfortably above a person mistyping a password and far below anything that
# makes a dictionary worth running.
ACCOUNT_LIMIT = 10
ACCOUNT_WINDOW_S = 15 * 60
# Wider, because one address is legitimately many people: a household, an office
# behind NAT, a phone on carrier-grade NAT.
ADDRESS_LIMIT = 50
ADDRESS_WINDOW_S = 15 * 60
# Registration is scarcer than a sign-in — it creates a row, and on a private
# instance the honest number of accounts anyone needs to make is one.
REGISTER_LIMIT = 5
REGISTER_WINDOW_S = 60 * 60
# Never let the bookkeeping become the denial of service: an attacker rotating a
# forged X-Forwarded-For could otherwise mint an unbounded number of buckets. Well
# above any real deployment's distinct-caller count, so a legitimate instance never
# reaches it; when it is reached the oldest buckets are dropped, which at worst
# forgives some attempts.
# Never let the bookkeeping become the denial of service: an attacker rotating an
# address could otherwise mint an unbounded number of buckets. Well above any real
# deployment's distinct-caller count, so a legitimate instance never reaches it; when
# it is reached the oldest buckets are dropped, which at worst forgives some attempts.
#
# Not a setting: it protects the limiter from itself rather than the app from a
# caller, and there is no operator judgment to apply to it.
MAX_BUCKETS = 10_000
@@ -68,13 +57,25 @@ class SlidingWindow:
Sliding rather than a fixed window because a fixed one lets twice the limit
through across a boundary — 10 at 14:59 and 10 at 15:00 — which for a login
limiter is the difference between the number meaning something and not.
The limit and window are SUPPLIERS, not values, so an admin saving a new number in
Settings takes effect on the next attempt instead of the next deploy. They are read
per call, which is a dict lookup — the settings cache never touches the database.
"""
def __init__(self, limit: int, window_s: float) -> None:
self.limit = limit
self.window_s = window_s
def __init__(self, limit: Callable[[], int], window_s: Callable[[], float]) -> None:
self._limit = limit
self._window_s = window_s
self._hits: dict[str, deque[float]] = {}
@property
def limit(self) -> int:
return self._limit()
@property
def window_s(self) -> float:
return self._window_s()
def _prune(self, key: str, now: float) -> deque[float]:
hits = self._hits.get(key)
if hits is None:
@@ -112,9 +113,19 @@ class SlidingWindow:
self._hits.clear()
sign_in_by_account = SlidingWindow(ACCOUNT_LIMIT, ACCOUNT_WINDOW_S)
sign_in_by_address = SlidingWindow(ADDRESS_LIMIT, ADDRESS_WINDOW_S)
register_by_address = SlidingWindow(REGISTER_LIMIT, REGISTER_WINDOW_S)
def _minutes(key: str) -> Callable[[], float]:
return lambda: float(live(key)) * 60.0
sign_in_by_account = SlidingWindow(
lambda: live("signin_limit_per_account"), _minutes("signin_window_minutes")
)
sign_in_by_address = SlidingWindow(
lambda: live("signin_limit_per_address"), _minutes("signin_window_minutes")
)
register_by_address = SlidingWindow(
lambda: live("register_limit_per_address"), _minutes("register_window_minutes")
)
def reset_all() -> None: