Implemented experimental JSON based sessions

CHANGES

@@ -3,6 +3,15 @@ Flask Changelog
 
 Here you can see the full list of changes between each Flask release.
 
+Version 0.10
+------------
+
+Release date to be decided.
+
+- Changed default cookie serialization format from pickle to JSON to
+  limit the impact an attacker can do if the secret key leaks.  See
+  :ref:`upgrading-to-010` for more information.
+
 Version 0.9
 -----------
 

docs/api.rst

@@ -215,6 +215,13 @@ implementation that Flask is using.
 .. autoclass:: SecureCookieSessionInterface
    :members:
 
+.. autoclass:: UpgradeSecureCookieSessionInterface
+
+.. autoclass:: SecureCookieSession
+   :members:
+
+.. autoclass:: UpgradeSecureCookieSession
+
 .. autoclass:: NullSession
    :members:
 

docs/upgrading.rst

@@ -19,6 +19,57 @@ installation, make sure to pass it the ``-U`` parameter::
 
     $ easy_install -U Flask
 
+.. _upgrading-to-010:
+
+Version 0.10
+------------
+
+The biggest change going from 0.9 to 0.10 is that the cookie serialization
+format changed from pickle to a specialized JSON format.  This change has
+been done in order to avoid the damage an attacker can do if the secret
+key is leaked.  When you upgrade you will notice two major changes: all
+sessions that were issued before the upgrade are invalidated and you can
+only store a limited amount of types in the session.  There are two ways
+to avoid these problems on upgrading:
+
+Automatically Upgrade Sessions
+``````````````````````````````
+
+The first method is to allow pickle based sessions for a limited amount of
+time.  This can be done by using the
+:class:`~flask.sessions.UpgradeSecureCookieSession` session
+implementation::
+
+    from flask import Flask
+    from flask.sessions import UpgradeSecureCookieSessionInterface
+
+    app = Flask(__name__)
+    app.session_interface = UpgradeSecureCookieSessionInterface
+
+For as long as this class is being used both pickle and json sessions are
+supported but changes are written in JSON format only.
+
+Revert to Pickle Sessions
+`````````````````````````
+
+You can also revert to pickle based sessions if you want::
+
+    import pickle
+    from flask import Flask
+    from flask.sessions import SecureCookieSession, \
+         SecureCookieSessionInterface
+
+    class PickleSessionInterface(SecureCookieSessionInterface):
+        class session_class(SecureCookieSession):
+            serialization_method = pickle
+
+    app = Flask(__name__)
+    app.session_interface = PickleSessionInterface
+
+If you want to continue to use pickle based data we strongly recommend
+switching to a server side session store however.
+
+
 Version 0.9
 -----------
 

flask/sessions.py

@@ -10,8 +10,12 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 
+import cPickle as pickle
 from datetime import datetime
 from werkzeug.contrib.securecookie import SecureCookie
+from werkzeug.http import http_date, parse_date
+from .helpers import json, _assert_have_json
+from . import Markup
 
 
 class SessionMixin(object):
@@ -41,10 +45,74 @@ class SessionMixin(object):
     modified = True
 
 
+class TaggedJSONSerializer(object):
+    """A customized JSON serializer that supports a few extra types that
+    we take for granted when serializing (tuples, markup objects, datetime).
+    """
+
+    def dumps(self, value):
+        if __debug__:
+            _assert_have_json()
+        def _tag(value):
+            if isinstance(value, tuple):
+                return {'##t': [_tag(x) for x in value]}
+            elif callable(getattr(value, '__html__', None)):
+                return {'##m': unicode(value.__html__())}
+            elif isinstance(value, list):
+                return [_tag(x) for x in value]
+            elif isinstance(value, datetime):
+                return {'##d': http_date(value)}
+            elif isinstance(value, dict):
+                return dict((k, _tag(v)) for k, v in value.iteritems())
+            return value
+        return json.dumps(_tag(value), separators=(',', ':'))
+
+    def loads(self, value):
+        if __debug__:
+            _assert_have_json()
+        def object_hook(obj):
+            if len(obj) != 1:
+                return obj
+            the_key, the_value = obj.iteritems().next()
+            if the_key == '##t':
+                return tuple(the_value)
+            elif the_key == '##m':
+                return Markup(the_value)
+            elif the_key == '##d':
+                return parse_date(the_value)
+            return obj
+        return json.loads(value, object_hook=object_hook)
+
+
+session_json_serializer = TaggedJSONSerializer()
+
+
 class SecureCookieSession(SecureCookie, SessionMixin):
     """Expands the session with support for switching between permanent
-    and non-permanent sessions.
+    and non-permanent sessions and changes the default pickle based
+    serialization format to a tagged json one.
+    """
+    serialization_method = session_json_serializer
+
+
+class _UpgradeSerializer(object):
+    def dumps(self, value):
+        return session_json_serializer.dumps(value)
+    def loads(self, value):
+        try:
+            return session_json_serializer.loads(value)
+        except Exception:
+            return pickle.loads(value)
+
+
+class UpgradeSecureCookieSession(SecureCookieSession):
+    """This cookie sesion implementation tries json first but will also
+    support pickle based session.  This exists mainly to upgrade existing
+    pickle based users transparently to json.
+
+    .. versionadded:: 0.10
     """
+    serialization_method = _UpgradeSerializer()
 
 
 class NullSession(SecureCookieSession):
@@ -203,3 +271,13 @@ class SecureCookieSessionInterface(SessionInterface):
             session.save_cookie(response, app.session_cookie_name, path=path,
                                 expires=expires, httponly=httponly,
                                 secure=secure, domain=domain)
+
+
+class UpgradeSecureCookieSessionInterface(SecureCookieSessionInterface):
+    """This session interface works exactly like the regular one but uses
+    the :class:`UpgradeSecureCookieSession` classes to upgrade from pickle
+    sessions to JSON sessions.
+
+    .. versionadded:: 0.10
+    """
+    session_class = UpgradeSecureCookieSession

flask/testsuite/basic.py

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ from __future__ import with_statement
 
 import re
 import flask
+import pickle
 import unittest
 from datetime import datetime
 from threading import Thread
@@ -297,6 +298,31 @@ class BasicFunctionalityTestCase(FlaskTestCase):
         self.assert_equal(c.get('/').data, 'None')
         self.assert_equal(c.get('/').data, '42')
 
+    def test_session_special_types(self):
+        app = flask.Flask(__name__)
+        app.secret_key = 'development-key'
+        app.testing = True
+        now = datetime.utcnow().replace(microsecond=0)
+
+        @app.after_request
+        def modify_session(response):
+            flask.session['m'] = flask.Markup('Hello!')
+            flask.session['dt'] = now
+            flask.session['t'] = (1, 2, 3)
+            return response
+
+        @app.route('/')
+        def dump_session_contents():
+            return pickle.dumps(dict(flask.session))
+
+        c = app.test_client()
+        c.get('/')
+        rv = pickle.loads(c.get('/').data)
+        self.assert_equal(rv['m'], flask.Markup('Hello!'))
+        self.assert_equal(type(rv['m']), flask.Markup)
+        self.assert_equal(rv['dt'], now)
+        self.assert_equal(rv['t'], (1, 2, 3))
+
     def test_flashes(self):
         app = flask.Flask(__name__)
         app.secret_key = 'testkey'