Add configuration security best practices to the README.

Closes #13870.
pull/16367/head
Denis Kasak 2021-02-04 13:20:07 +01:00
parent c6e94c61db
commit b22484d203
1 changed files with 46 additions and 3 deletions

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@ -58,8 +58,11 @@ and thus allowed.
To install Element as a desktop application, see [Running as a desktop
app](#running-as-a-desktop-app) below.
Important Security Note
=======================
Important Security Notes
========================
Separate domains
----------------
We do not recommend running Element from the same domain name as your Matrix
homeserver. The reason is the risk of XSS (cross-site-scripting)
@ -71,6 +74,45 @@ We have put some coarse mitigations into place to try to protect against this
situation, but it's still not good practice to do it in the first place. See
https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/1977 for more details.
Configuration best practices
----------------------------
Unless you have special requirements, you will want to add the following to
your web server configuration when hosting Element Web:
- The `X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN` header, to prevent Element Web from being
framed and protect from [clickjacking][owasp-clickjacking].
- The `frame-ancestors 'none'` directive to your `Content-Security-Policy`
header, as the modern replacement for `X-Frame-Options` (though both should be
included since not all browsers support it yet, see
[this][owasp-clickjacking-csp]).
- The `X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff` header, to [disable MIME
sniffing][mime-sniffing].
- The `X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block;` header, for basic XSS protection in
legacy browsers.
[mime-sniffing]:
<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types#mime_sniffing>
[owasp-clickjacking-csp]:
<https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Clickjacking_Defense_Cheat_Sheet.html#content-security-policy-frame-ancestors-examples>
[owasp-clickjacking]:
<https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Clickjacking_Defense_Cheat_Sheet.html>
If you are using nginx, this would look something like the following:
```
add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
add_header Content-Security-Policy "frame-ancestors 'none'";
```
Note: In case you are already setting a `Content-Security-Policy` header
elsewhere, you should modify it to include the `frame-ancestors` directive
instead of adding that last line.
Building From Source
====================
@ -99,7 +141,8 @@ guide](https://classic.yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install) if you do not have it alread
Note that `yarn dist` is not supported on Windows, so Windows users can run `yarn build`,
which will build all the necessary files into the `webapp` directory. The version of Element
will not appear in Settings without using the dist script. You can then mount the
`webapp` directory on your webserver to actually serve up the app, which is entirely static content.
`webapp` directory on your web server to actually serve up the app, which is
entirely static content.
Running as a Desktop app
========================