Modify request parameter with servlet filter

Question

An existing web application is running on Tomcat 4.1. There is an XSS issue with a page, but I can't modify the source. I've decided to write a servlet filter to sanitize the parameter before it is seen by the page.

I would like to write a Filter class like this:

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;

public final class XssFilter implements Filter {

  public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain)
      throws IOException, ServletException
  {
    String badValue = request.getParameter("dangerousParamName");
    String goodValue = sanitize(badValue);
    request.setParameter("dangerousParamName", goodValue);
    chain.doFilter(request, response);
  }

  public void destroy() {
  }

  public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) {
  }
}

But ServletRequest.setParameter doesn't exist.

How can I change the value of the request parameter before passing the request down the chain?

user_9869013 · Answer

Based on all your remarks here is my proposal that worked for me :

 private final class CustomHttpServletRequest extends HttpServletRequestWrapper {

    private final Map queryParameterMap;
    private final Charset requestEncoding;

    public CustomHttpServletRequest(HttpServletRequest request) {
        super(request);
        queryParameterMap = getCommonQueryParamFromLegacy(request.getParameterMap());

        String encoding = request.getCharacterEncoding();
        requestEncoding = (encoding != null ? Charset.forName(encoding) : StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
    }

    private final Map getCommonQueryParamFromLegacy(Map paramMap) {
        Objects.requireNonNull(paramMap);

        Map commonQueryParamMap = new LinkedHashMap<>(paramMap);

        commonQueryParamMap.put(CommonQueryParams.PATIENT_ID, new String[] { paramMap.get(LEGACY_PARAM_PATIENT_ID)[0] });
        commonQueryParamMap.put(CommonQueryParams.PATIENT_BIRTHDATE, new String[] { paramMap.get(LEGACY_PARAM_PATIENT_BIRTHDATE)[0] });
        commonQueryParamMap.put(CommonQueryParams.KEYWORDS, new String[] { paramMap.get(LEGACY_PARAM_STUDYTYPE)[0] });

        String lowerDateTime = null;
        String upperDateTime = null;

        try {
            String studyDateTime = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy").parse(paramMap.get(LEGACY_PARAM_STUDY_DATE_TIME)[0]));

            lowerDateTime = studyDateTime + "T23:59:59";
            upperDateTime = studyDateTime + "T00:00:00";

        } catch (ParseException e) {
            LOGGER.error("Can't parse StudyDate from query parameters : {}", e.getLocalizedMessage());
        }

        commonQueryParamMap.put(CommonQueryParams.LOWER_DATETIME, new String[] { lowerDateTime });
        commonQueryParamMap.put(CommonQueryParams.UPPER_DATETIME, new String[] { upperDateTime });

        legacyQueryParams.forEach(commonQueryParamMap::remove);
        return Collections.unmodifiableMap(commonQueryParamMap);

    }

    @Override
    public String getParameter(String name) {
        String[] params = queryParameterMap.get(name);
        return params != null ? params[0] : null;
    }

    @Override
    public String[] getParameterValues(String name) {
        return queryParameterMap.get(name);
    }

    @Override
    public Map getParameterMap() {
            return queryParameterMap; // unmodifiable to uphold the interface contract.
        }

        @Override
        public Enumeration getParameterNames() {
            return Collections.enumeration(queryParameterMap.keySet());
        }

        @Override
        public String getQueryString() {
            // @see : https://stackoverflow.com/a/35831692/9869013
            // return queryParameterMap.entrySet().stream().flatMap(entry -> Stream.of(entry.getValue()).map(value -> entry.getKey() + "=" + value)).collect(Collectors.joining("&")); // without encoding !!
            return queryParameterMap.entrySet().stream().flatMap(entry -> encodeMultiParameter(entry.getKey(), entry.getValue(), requestEncoding)).collect(Collectors.joining("&"));
        }

        private Stream encodeMultiParameter(String key, String[] values, Charset encoding) {
            return Stream.of(values).map(value -> encodeSingleParameter(key, value, encoding));
        }

        private String encodeSingleParameter(String key, String value, Charset encoding) {
            return urlEncode(key, encoding) + "=" + urlEncode(value, encoding);
        }

        private String urlEncode(String value, Charset encoding) {
            try {
                return URLEncoder.encode(value, encoding.name());
            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot url encode " + value, e);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public ServletInputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("getInputStream() is not implemented in this " + CustomHttpServletRequest.class.getSimpleName() + " wrapper");
        }

    }

note : queryString() requires to process ALL the values for each KEY and don't forget to encodeUrl() when adding your own param values, if required

As a limitation, if you call request.getParameterMap() or any method that would call request.getReader() and begin reading, you will prevent any further calls to request.setCharacterEncoding(...)

user_5174549 · Answer

This is what i ended up doing

//import ../../Constants;

public class RequestFilter implements Filter {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(RequestFilter.class);

    @Override
    public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {
    }

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest servletRequest, ServletResponse servletResponse, FilterChain filterChain)
        throws IOException, ServletException {
        try {
            CustomHttpServletRequest customHttpServletRequest = new CustomHttpServletRequest((HttpServletRequest) servletRequest);
            filterChain.doFilter(customHttpServletRequest, servletResponse);
        } finally {
            //do something here
        }
    }



    @Override
    public void destroy() {

    }

     public static Map ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS = new HashMap() {
        {
            put("diagnostics", new String[]{"false"});
            put("skipCache", new String[]{"false"});
        }
    };

    /*
        This is a custom wrapper over the `HttpServletRequestWrapper` which 
        overrides the various header getter methods and query param getter methods.
        Changes to the request pojo are
        => A custom header is added whose value is a unique id
        => Admin query params are set to default values in the url
    */
    private class CustomHttpServletRequest extends HttpServletRequestWrapper {
        public CustomHttpServletRequest(HttpServletRequest request) {
            super(request);
            //create custom id (to be returned) when the value for a
            //particular header is asked for
            internalRequestId = RandomStringUtils.random(10, true, true) + "-local";
        }

        public String getHeader(String name) {
            String value = super.getHeader(name);
            if(Strings.isNullOrEmpty(value) && isRequestIdHeaderName(name)) {
                value = internalRequestId;
            }
            return value;
        }

        private boolean isRequestIdHeaderName(String name) {
            return Constants.RID_HEADER.equalsIgnoreCase(name) || Constants.X_REQUEST_ID_HEADER.equalsIgnoreCase(name);
        }

        public Enumeration getHeaders(String name) {
            List values = Collections.list(super.getHeaders(name));
            if(values.size()==0 && isRequestIdHeaderName(name)) {
                values.add(internalRequestId);
            }
            return Collections.enumeration(values);
        }

        public Enumeration getHeaderNames() {
            List names = Collections.list(super.getHeaderNames());
            names.add(Constants.RID_HEADER);
            names.add(Constants.X_REQUEST_ID_HEADER);
            return Collections.enumeration(names);
        }

        public String getParameter(String name) {
            if (ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS.get(name) != null) {
                return ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS.get(name)[0];
            }
            return super.getParameter(name);
        }

        public Map getParameterMap() {
            Map paramsMap = new HashMap<>(super.getParameterMap());
            for (String paramName : ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS.keySet()) {
                if (paramsMap.get(paramName) != null) {
                    paramsMap.put(paramName, ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS.get(paramName));
                }
            }
            return paramsMap;
        }

        public String[] getParameterValues(String name) {
            if (ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS.get(name) != null) {
                return ADMIN_QUERY_PARAMS.get(name);
            }
            return super.getParameterValues(name);
        }

        public String getQueryString() {
            Map map = getParameterMap();
            StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
            for (String param: map.keySet()) {
                for (String value: map.get(param)) {
                    builder.append(param).append("=").append(value).append("&");
                }
            }
            builder.deleteCharAt(builder.length() - 1);
            return builder.toString();
        }
    }
}

Modify request parameter with servlet filter

8 Answers