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fix(coderd/notifications): HTML-escape the email template values (#28397) - #28603
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) Follows #28340, now merged. `smtp.go` renders the notification title through `PlaintextFromMarkdown`, which strips Markdown **and decodes HTML entities**, then stores the result in `Labels["_subject"]`. `html.gotmpl` interpolated that raw into `<title>` and `<h1>`, so an entity-encoded payload in a user-controlled label arrived as live markup: ``` template_display_name = <a href="https://attacker.example/login">Re-authenticate now</a> -> <title>Template "<a href="https://attacker.example/login">Re-authenticate now</a>" deleted</title> ``` Markdown escaping cannot reach this. `&` is not backslash-escapable in either renderer, and this path never enters gomarkdown, so neither `html.SkipHTML` nor the `Safelink` added in #28340 sees the string. `{{ .UserName }}` was interpolated raw at the same template, straight from the unescaped payload the dispatcher receives. This PR adds `| html` to seven values across eleven positions in `html.gotmpl`: | Value | Positions | Why | |---|---|---| | `.Labels._subject` | 2 | the injection above, in `<title>` and `<h1>` | | `.UserName` | 1 | reaches the template straight from the unescaped payload | | `$action.URL` | 1 | rendered from user data at `enqueuer.go:201`; `EscapedForMarkdown` does not touch `Actions` | | `$action.Label` | 1 | static today, escaped so it stays safe if that changes | | `base_url` | 4 | `--access-url` is scheme-checked only, so a `"` closes the `href` | | `current_year` | 1 | cannot carry markup, escaped so the rule has no exceptions | | `.NotificationTemplateID` | 1 | same | `logo_url` and `app_name` were already escaped in #28340. `{{ .Labels._body }}` stays unescaped: it is intentionally gomarkdown output, and it is the only value in the file that is not escaped. The action and `base_url` values are defense in depth rather than open holes. A `"` in an action URL fails closed at enqueue, because the rendered actions JSON is unmarshalled before use and the quote breaks that parse; `<`, `>`, `&` and `'` survive but are inert inside a double-quoted attribute. `base_url` requires an operator to set a hostile `--access-url`. Every value is guarded by a test. Removing `| html` from any of the nine escaped values now fails a named test, verified by removing each pipe in turn: - `TestSMTPHTMLTemplateEscapesUntrustedValues` covers `_subject`, `UserName` and both action values. - `TestSMTPHTMLTemplateEscapesTrustedValues` covers `base_url`, `current_year` and `.NotificationTemplateID`, none of which can carry markup in production, so no golden file would catch their regression. - `TestSMTPHTMLTemplateEscapesAppearanceHelpers` covers `logo_url` and `app_name`. That last point is why the trusted values needed tests rather than goldens: escaping them costs zero golden churn, so nothing already in the tree fails when it is removed. Before this PR the same was true of `$action.Label`, whose escaping could be deleted with no golden diff and no failing test at all. The 36 golden files change by entity encoding only, mostly `"` to `"` and `'` to `'` in subjects. Verified by quoted-printable decoding every file before and after and confirming the two are identical once HTML entities are decoded: 36/36 with no semantic difference. Escaping `base_url`, `current_year` and `.NotificationTemplateID` added no further churn. **NOTE**: `$action.URL | html` turns the `&` in the one-time passcode reset link into `&`. That is the correct encoding of a literal `&` in an attribute value, and every conformant client decodes it before navigating, so the request the server receives is unchanged. It is the only golden change with behavior attached. Migrating this template to `html/template` was considered and declined; the reasoning and the conditions that would reverse it are on the CRF-3 review thread. Refs https://linear.app/codercom/issue/PLAT-273/markdown-link-injection-into-admin-notification-emails-sec-93 (cherry picked from commit 2236710)
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Backport of #28397
Original PR: #28397 — fix(coderd/notifications): HTML-escape the email template values
Merge commit: 2236710
Requested by: @BobbyHo
The automatic cherry-pick originally conflicted because it ran before #28605 (the backport of #28340) had landed on
release/2.37. #28397 amends a comment directly above theescaped := payload.EscapedForMarkdown()block that #28340 introduced, so with that block absent the hunk had no context to anchor to.#28605 is now on
release/2.37, and the cherry-pick applies cleanly. This branch has been re-created fromrelease/2.37withgit cherry-pick -x -m1 2236710b, and the resulting diff is byte-identical to the original PR's diff.