Stop embedding the control token in every page (v0.9.10)

Closes TODO 2 of the security audit in docs/prs/2026-07-08-PR#000.

Every rendered page carried the live control token in a meta tag so that
gittally.js could send it, but no GET is authenticated — so `curl … |
grep gittally-control-token` handed the token to anyone, and read access
was effectively write access.

Reading stays fully public, which is a requirement rather than an
oversight: build states, logs and artifacts must be linkable from Gitea,
chats or tickets without a login. Only the distribution of the token
changed. The meta tag is gone; gittally.js keeps the token in
localStorage and asks for it once per browser, so knowing it requires
shell access to `.git/gittally/control-token` on the host. A token the
server rejects is dropped and asked for once more, so a rotated secret is
not a dead end. As a request header it stays inherently CSRF-safe.

The five branches of that flow (first use, reuse, stale token, cancelled
prompt, wrong token twice) were exercised against the real source with a
throwaway node harness; the UI test now asserts the token does not appear
in the rendered page. `docs/deployment.md` gained a "Control Token"
section on the public-read/token-protected-write split.

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
mhoennig
2026-08-11 08:00:09 +02:00
co-authored by Claude
parent ea0b67d331
commit a734d91918
9 changed files with 103 additions and 16 deletions
@@ -141,7 +141,9 @@ class UiControllerTest : FunSpec() {
).andExpect(content().string(containsString("/builds/main-abc123-key")))
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("""data-action="restart"""")))
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("""data-action="delete"""")))
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("""name="gittally-control-token" content="test-token"""")))
// the control token must never reach the browser: reading a page is unauthenticated
.andExpect(content().string(not(containsString("gittally-control-token"))))
.andExpect(content().string(not(containsString("test-token"))))
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("https://example.org/imprint")))
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("1:23")))
}