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security: bind .html4ignore read to NOFOLLOW_LINKS at open time - #632

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sentinel-fix-toctou-8962286801713800394
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security: bind .html4ignore read to NOFOLLOW_LINKS at open time#632
seonghobae wants to merge 9 commits into
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sentinel-fix-toctou-8962286801713800394

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@seonghobae

@seonghobae seonghobae commented Sep 5, 2026

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Current exact authority

  • protected base: master@728f0f33323e43573d6664209891099502827d5d
  • exact head: 5c29d6c8d48504720a0add35136ceee26a6b5f57
  • ancestry: ahead 2 / behind 0; merge base is exact protected master
  • effective protected-base delta: src/main/kotlin/html4tree/main.kt only
  • branch-specific .jules/sentinel.md doctrine was restored byte-for-byte to protected authority
  • lifecycle: Draft; realistic race/recovery and exact-head hosted evidence remain incomplete

Valid finding

The protected implementation checks isFile, isSymbolicLink, readability, and size before later calling File.useLines. A final-component path can change after those checks. This branch changes the time-of-use open to Files.newInputStream(path, READ, NOFOLLOW_LINKS), so a final-component symlink is not followed by that open. Java NIO defines LinkOption.NOFOLLOW_LINKS as an OpenOption whose contract is not to follow symbolic links.

The original PR overclaimed full TOCTOU closure and verified security without a deterministic swap case. No branch test currently proves a replacement between pre-check and open, and an open-time IOException currently escapes process_ignore_file/crawl_directories, which is fail-closed for publication but can terminate the wider crawl instead of applying a bounded per-directory policy failure.

Sibling #629 owns a complementary delta: a declared-but-invalid policy becomes IgnoreFileReadException, the crawler skips publication of that directory, and current successor 466c214dd7b358e77d411514165ad72562871bcf includes a deterministic propagation test. #629, however, still uses File.useLines after the pre-check and therefore does not by itself bind the actual open to NOFOLLOW_LINKS. Neither PR fully supersedes the other yet; do not close either as a duplicate.

GREEN acceptance

Produce one normal descendant/successor that preserves both valid semantic deltas: (1) a time-of-use open that cannot follow a final-component symlink, and (2) typed fail-closed policy-read handling that prevents publication/child traversal for the affected directory without silently treating policy failure as no policy. Add deterministic seams/fixtures for open failure and replacement semantics rather than a timing-dependent background race. Preserve the existing size/line/pattern limits and default-sensitive exclusions. Then run one unchanged exact head through CI/security/SAST/CodeQL. Only after byte/semantic/test inheritance is verified may one sibling be closed as fully superseded.

Fresh current-head workflows are non-terminal: CI 33992368306, Security Scan 33992368293, SAST Semgrep 33992368415, and CodeQL PR 33992368282 are queued/pending. Predecessor results do not transfer.

No force-push, destructive rebase, self-approval, suppression, or security-severity inflation. Keep Draft until the combined causal boundary and exact-head evidence exist.

This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files.
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@seonghobae seonghobae changed the title 🛡️ Sentinel: [MEDIUM] Fix TOCTOU vulnerability in .html4ignore reading security: bind .html4ignore read to NOFOLLOW_LINKS at open time Sep 5, 2026
@seonghobae
seonghobae marked this pull request as draft September 5, 2026 21:13
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
This commit addresses a Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) symlink swapping vulnerability by explicitly preventing `Files.newInputStream` from following symbolic links when reading `.html4ignore` files. It also adds a unit test to guarantee this behavior.
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