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Security/Projects/Bandit

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Revision as of 10:05, 7 April 2016 by Tim Kelsey (talk | contribs) (→‎Bandit Baseline Gate)

Overview

Bandit is a security linter for Python source code, utilizing the ast module from the Python standard library.

The ast module is used to convert source code into a parsed tree of Python syntax nodes. Bandit allows users to define custom tests that are performed against those nodes. At the completion of testing, a report is generated that lists security issues identified within the target source code.

Bandit is currently a stand-alone tool which can be downloaded by end-users and run against arbitrary source code. As it matures and is proven to be useful, we see it being a possible addition to OpenStack CI gate tests with non-voting and eventually voting capabilities.

Bandit can be obtained by cloning the repository at https://git.openstack.org/openstack/bandit.git. The README.rst file contains documentation regarding installation, usage, and configuration.

Contributing

Bandit makes use of the OpenStack CI infrastructure provided through OpenStack:


An easy way to contribute is to write a plugin/test that will allow Bandit to identify more security issues. Extensions and improvements to the underlying framework are also welcomed, although we'll be attempting to maintain stability in the interface that is presented to plugins.

See Development Workflow for information on the general contribution/review workflow.

Gate Testing with Bandit

Bandit can help maintain the security of OpenStack projects when it's used as a gate test. Projects such as Keystone have created a gate test which runs Bandit to ensure that common security code mistakes are not introduced when code is modified. New: you now have two ways to set up a Bandit gate and we'll cover the steps for both below.

Full run Bandit gate:

This option works well for projects that already have clean Bandit runs. To set up a full run Bandit gate for an OpenStack project, follow these steps:

  1. Decide on the appropriate tests to run, not every test supported by bandit will be a good fit for every project. The bandit command line arguments -s and -t can be used to filter the test set to run.
  2. (optional) Add a Bandit config for your project. If you need to configure specific test parameters, in addition to switching test on or off wholesale, then a bandit config may be needed. Bandit ships with the tool 'bandit-config-generator' can help generate a config file if needed. This config is completely optional and is only needed if the defaults for specific tests are not sufficient.
  3. Add "bandit" (the package name on pypi) to the test-requirements.txt file. While running Bandit only actually requires the bandit package, it's easiest for now to just leave it in with the rest of the test requirements. This file lists the requirements for creating the virtual environment Bandit runs in and gets updated automatically in most projects by the OpenStack proposal bot.
  4. Add a tox environment to run Bandit. Keystone's is here: tox.ini in the [testenv:bandit] section
  5. Add the Bandit job to the list of jobs for your project in OpenStack Infra. Keystone implemented this change here: jenkins/jobs/projects.yaml
  6. Add the Bandit gate to your project section in OpenStack Infra. For an example, here is Keystone's job: zuul/layout.yaml. Note: for Keystone Bandit is currently set up as non-voting. This means that failures in Bandit won't cause Jenkins to reject the change. This has the advantage that it will never cause your change to fail, but it also doesn't allow Bandit to prevent anything. To make the Bandit check voting set "voting: true".
  7. Modify the "check" section of your project in OpenStack infra to run Bandit as a check. For an example see this change: Keystone add Bandit check.
  8. Run this way for a while and then make it voting!


Steps 1-3 should be done in one commit for your project, and steps 4-6 will be a separate commit for OpenStack Infra. If you have any questions or comments please contact tmcpeak or tkelsey in #openstack-security on Freenode IRC.

Bandit Baseline Gate

This is the best option for projects which may have some legacy Bandit findings. Just because a project has some pre-existing security issues doesn't mean Bandit can't help prevent new ones! To set up a Bandit Baseline gate for an OpenStack project, follow these steps:

  1. Decide on the appropriate tests to run, not every test supported by bandit will be a good fit for every project. The bandit command line arguments -s and -t can be used to filter the test set to run.
  2. (optional) Add a Bandit config for your project. If you need to configure specific test parameters, in addition to switching tests on or off wholesale, then a bandit config may be needed. Bandit ships with the tool 'bandit-config-generator' that can help generate a config file if needed. This config is completely optional and is only needed if the defaults for specific tests are not sufficient.
  3. Add "bandit" (the package name on pypi) to the test-requirements.txt file. While running Bandit only actually requires the bandit package, it's easiest for now to just leave it in with the rest of the test requirements. This file lists the requirements for creating the virtual environment Bandit runs in and gets updated automatically in most projects by the OpenStack proposal bot.
  4. Add a tox environment to run the Bandit basline. To do this we'll add two targets:
    1. a standalone target "codesec" codesec tox target which is useful for developers to check their changes
    2. a "linters" target: linters tox target. By adding a linters target, we're extending our linters to run Bandit in addition to the normal flake8 tests.
    3. In both cases the arguments for 'bandit-baseline' should be identical to what you want to pass into Bandit. For example, if you created a config file above, you'll want to specify it with '-c myconfig.yaml'. In the example above we're running: 'bandit-baseline -r bandit -ll -ii' which tells Bandit (and bandit-baseline) to run scan the 'bandit' directory recursively and filter medium+ severity and confidence issues.
  5. Change the OpenStack infra zuul/layout.yaml for your project to use 'python-jobs-linters' instead of 'python-jobs' like we did for the Bandit project itself here: zuul layout change example. This enables your project to use the 'linters' target in your python-jobs gate instead of just flake8. Note: if you do this you'll have a voting Bandit gate. You should make sure you're comfortable with Bandit and how it works before changing this.

Profiles

By default Bandit runs all plugins that it finds in the plugins directory. While this may be useful for doing a thorough manual review, for use cases such as automation and gate testing, this is probably overkill. Luckily, Bandit allows a user to create profiles which run or exclude specific tests.

Once a profile has been created, you can run it by using the "-c" command line option to point to the config file which contains your profile and "-p" to point to the specific profile you'd like to use.

TODO

TODO is now tracked using blueprints in Launchpad: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/bandit

Projects using bandit

Project name Disabled checks Voting gate? Comments
oslo.messaging
  • assert_used
  • try_except_pass
No https://review.openstack.org/239437
oslo.utils
  • assert_used
  • try_except_pass
 No https://review.openstack.org/239666


Team

Bandit is a tool from the OpenStack Security project.

Core project team:

  • Jamie Finnigan (chair6)
  • Travis McPeak (tmcpeak)
  • Tim Kelsey (tkelsey)
  • Eric Brown (browne)
  • Ian Cordasco (sigmavirus24)
  • Stan Pitucha (viraptor)
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