How to fix Potential for Information Disclosure in CakePHP

fix Potential for Information Disclosure in CakePHP

The default application skeleton contained a beforeRender() method on the AppController that could potentially lead to unwanted information disclosure in your application. The unsafe default code was present between 3.1.0 and 3.5.0 of the application skeleton.

Risks

The default beforeRender hook would automatically serialize all view variables into JSON/XML if the _serialize view variable was not defined by the controller action. Controller methods that define the _serialize variable would behave correctly and only expose the named variables.

This behavior is triggered by the AppController and ErrorController loading RequestHandlerComponent, which configures the View class to be used based on the client’s Accept header. Then code in AppController::beforeRender() would enable all view variables to be serialized if no variables were explicitly listed.

The default controllers generated by bake set the _serialize view variable. This helps limit the impact, but could still lead to unwanted information exposure if entity classes are not correctly configured.

How to fix

You can fix the potential for information disclosure by modifying your application code. Unfortunately we cannot resolve this problem for you through a patch release of CakePHP or its appplication skeleton.

If you don’t have ErrorController in your src/Controller directory (CakePHP <= 3.3)

If you are using CakePHP 3.3.0 or greater and do not have an ErrorController in your application, you should download an ErrorController and put it into your src/Controller directory.

If you don’t use JSON/XML response based on client requests

  • Remove $this->loadComponent(‘RequestHandler’) from the initialize() method of your AppController and ErrorController.
  • Remove $this->set(‘_serialize’, true); from the beforeRender() of your AppController.

If you use JSON/XML response based on client requests

  • Remove $this->set(‘_serialize’, true); from the beforeRender() of your AppController.
  • Remove $this->set(‘_serialize’, [ (variable names) ]) from all controller actions, that should not return JSON/XML.
  • Add $this->set(‘_serialize’, [ (variable names) ]) explicitly to some actions of your controllers, which you want to return JSON/XML.

While we have no reports of information disclosure in the wild, this issue was found by Kurita Takashi and we felt this was important to disclose.

Read From Official CakePHP blog

How to view records from Database in CakePHP

view records in CakePHP

To view records in CakePHP and To monitor records of database, we need to get hold of a table using the TableRegistry class. We can fetch the instance out of registry using get() method. The get() method will take the name of the database table as argument. Now, this new instance is used to find records from database using find() method. This method will return all records from the requested table.

Example

Make changes in the config/routes.php file as shown in the following code.

config/routes.php

<?php
   use Cake\Core\Plugin;
   use Cake\Routing\RouteBuilder;
   use Cake\Routing\Router;

   Router::defaultRouteClass('DashedRoute');
   Router::scope('/', function (RouteBuilder $routes) {
      $routes->connect('/users', ['controller' => 'Users', 'action' => 'index']);
      $routes->fallbacks('DashedRoute');
   });
   Plugin::routes();

Create a UsersController.php file at src/Controller/UsersController.php. Copy the following code in the controller file.

src/controller/UsersController.php

<?php
   namespace App\Controller;
   use App\Controller\AppController;
   use Cake\ORM\TableRegistry;
   use Cake\Datasource\ConnectionManager;

   class UsersController extends AppController{
      public function index(){
         $users = TableRegistry::get('users');
         $query = $users->find();
         $this->set('results',$query);
      }
   }
?>

Create a directory Users at src/Template, ignore if already created, and under that directory create a View file called index.ctp. Copy the following code in that file.

src/Template/Users/index.ctp

<a href = "add">Add User</a>
<table>
   <tr>
      <td>ID</td>
      <td>Username</td>
      <td>Password</td>
      <td>Edit</td>
      <td>Delete</td>
   </tr>

   <?php
      foreach ($results as $row):
         echo "<tr><td>".$row->id."</td>";
         echo "<td>".$row->username."</td>";
         echo "<td>".$row->password."</td>";
         echo "<td><a href = '".$this->Url->build
         (["controller" => "Users","action"=>"edit",$row->id])."'>Edit</a></td>";
         
         echo "<td><a href = '".$this->Url->build
         (["controller" => "Users","action"=> "delete",$row->id])."'>Delete</a></td></tr>";
      endforeach;
   ?>
</table>

Execute the above example by visiting the following URL.

http://localhost:85/CakePHP/users

Output

Upon execution, the above URL will give you the following output.

View a Record in CakePHP

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How to fix Potential for Information Disclosure in CakePHP

How to View Events, Callbacks in CakePHP

View Events, Callbacks in CakePHP

There are several callbacks/events that we can use with View Events. These events are helpful to perform several tasks before something happens or after something happens. The following is a list of callbacks that can be used with CakePHP.

S.No Event Function & Description
1 Helper::beforeRender(Event $event, $viewFile)

The beforeRender method is called after the controller’s beforeRender method but before the controller renders view and layout. This receives the file being rendered as an argument.

2 Helper::beforeRenderFile(Event $event, $viewFile)

This method is called before each view file is rendered. This includes elements, views, parent views and layouts.

3 Helper::afterRenderFile(Event $event, $viewFile, $content)

This method is called after each View file is rendered. This includes elements, views,parent views and layouts. A callback can modify and return $content to change how the rendered content will be displayed in the browser.

4 Helper::afterRender(Event $event, $viewFile)

This method is called after the view has been rendered but before the layout rendering has started.

5 Helper::beforeLayout(Event $event, $layoutFile)

This method is called before the layout rendering starts. This receives the layout filename as an argument.

6 Helper::afterLayout(Event $event, $layoutFile)

This method is called after the layout rendering is complete. This receives the layout filename as an argument.

How to Working with Views in CakePHP

Working with Views in CakePHP

The letter “V” in the MVC is for Views. Views are responsible for sending output to user based on request. View Classes is a powerful way to speed up the development process.

View Templates

The View Templates file of CakePHP has default extension .ctp (CakePHP Template). These templates get data from controller and then render the output so that it can be displayed properly to the user. We can use variables, various control structures in template.

Template files are stored in src/Template/, in a directory named after the controller that uses the files, and named after the action it corresponds to. For example, the View file for the Products controller’s “view()” action, would normally be found in src/Template/Products/view.ctp.

In short, the name of the controller (ProductsController) is same as the name of the folder (Products) but without the word Controller and name of action/method (view()) of the controller (ProductsController) is same as the name of the View file(view.ctp).

View Variables

View variables are variables which get the value from controller. We can use as many variables in view templates as we want. We can use the set() method to pass values to variables in views. These set variables will be available in both the view and the layout your action renders. The following is the syntax of the set() method.

Syntax

Cake\View\View::set(string $var, mixed $value)

This method takes two arguments − the name of the variable and its value.

Example

Make Changes in the config/routes.php file as shown in the following program.

config/routes.php

<?php
   use Cake\Core\Plugin;
   use Cake\Routing\RouteBuilder;
   use Cake\Routing\Router;

   Router::defaultRouteClass('DashedRoute');
   Router::scope('/', function (RouteBuilder $routes) {
      $routes->connect('template',['controller'=>'Products','action'=>'view']);
      $routes->fallbacks('DashedRoute');
   });
   Plugin::routes();

Create a ProductsController.php file at src/Controller/ProductsController.php. Copy the following code in the controller file.

src/Controller/ProductsController.php

<?php
   namespace App\Controller;
   use App\Controller\AppController;
   
   class ProductsController extends AppController{
      public function view(){
         $this->set('Product_Name','XYZ');
      }
   }
?>

Create a directory Products at src/Template and under that folder create a View file called view.ctp. Copy the following code in that file.

src/Template/Products/view.ctp

Value of variable is: <?php echo $Product_Name; ?>

Execute the above example by visiting the following URL.

http://localhost:85/CakePHP/template

Output

The above URL will produce the following output.

 

products

How to Working with Database in CakePHP

Working with Database in CakePHP

Working with database in CakePHP is very easy. We will understand the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations in this chapter. Before we proceed, we need to create the following users’ table in the database.

CREATE TABLE `users` (
   `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
   `username` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
   `password` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) 
ENGINE = InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT = 7 DEFAULT CHARSET = latin1

Further, we also need to configure our database in config/app.php file.

Insert a Record

To insert a record in database, we first need to get hold of a table using TableRegistry class. We can fetch the instance out of registry using get() method. The get() method will take the name of the database table as an argument.

This new instance is used to create new entity. Set necessary values with the instance of new entity. We now have to call the save() method with TableRegistry class’s instance which will insert new record in database.

Example

Make changes in the config/routes.php file as shown in the following program.

config/routes.php

<?php
   use Cake\Core\Plugin;
   use Cake\Routing\RouteBuilder;
   use Cake\Routing\Router;

   Router::defaultRouteClass('DashedRoute');
   Router::scope('/', function (RouteBuilder $routes) {
      $routes->connect('/users/add', ['controller' => 'Users', 'action' => 'add']);
      $routes->fallbacks('DashedRoute');
   });
   Plugin::routes();

Create a UsersController.php file at src/Controller/UsersController.php. Copy the following code in the controller file.

src/controller/UsersController.php

<?php
   namespace App\Controller;
   use App\Controller\AppController;
   use Cake\ORM\TableRegistry;
   use Cake\Datasource\ConnectionManager;
   use Cake\Auth\DefaultPasswordHasher;

   class UsersController extends AppController{
      public function add(){
         if($this->request->is('post')){
            $username = $this->request->data('username');
            $hashPswdObj = new DefaultPasswordHasher;
            $password = $hashPswdObj->hash($this->request->data('password'));
            $users_table = TableRegistry::get('users');
            $users = $users_table->newEntity();
            $users->username = $username;
            $users->password = $password;
         
            if($users_table->save($users))
            echo "User is added.";
         }
      }
   }
?>

Create a directory Users at src/Template and under that directory create a View file called add.ctp. Copy the following code in that file.

src/Template/Users/add.ctp

<?php
   echo $this->Form->create("Users",array('url'=>'/users/add'));
   echo $this->Form->input('username');
   echo $this->Form->input('password');
   echo $this->Form->button('Submit');
   echo $this->Form->end();
?>

Execute the above example by visiting the following URL.

http://localhost:85/CakePHP/users/add

How to Learn Tutorial in CakePHP

Learn Tutorial in CakePHP

CakePHP is an open-source framework for PHP. It is intended to make developing, deploying and maintaining applications much easier. CakePHP is based on an MVC-like architecture that is both powerful and easy to grasp. Models, Views, and Controllers guarantee a strict but natural separation of business logic from data and presentation layers.

Audience

This tutorial is meant for web developers and students who would like to learn how to develop websites using CakePHP. It will provide a good understanding of how to use this framework.

Prerequisites

Before you proceed with this tutorial, we assume that you have knowledge of HTML, Core PHP, and Advance PHP. We have used CakePHP version 3.2.7 in all the examples.

How to Redirect Routing in CakePHP

Redirect Routing in CakePHP

Redirect url in cakephp is simple to do but important feature for development. Redirect routing is useful when we want to inform client applications that this URL has been moved. The URL can be redirected using the following function.

static Cake\Routing\Router::redirect($route, $url, $options =[])

There are three arguments to the above function −

  • A string describing the template of the route.
  • A URL to redirect to.
  • An array matching the named elements in the route to regular expressions which that element should match.

Example

Make Changes in the config/routes.php file as shown below. Here, we have used controllers that were created previously.

config/routes.php

<?php
   use Cake\Core\Plugin;
   use Cake\Routing\RouteBuilder;
   use Cake\Routing\Router;

   Router::defaultRouteClass('DashedRoute');
   Router::scope('/', function (RouteBuilder $routes) {
      $routes->connect('/generate2', ['controller' => 'Tests', 'action' => 'index']);
      $routes->redirect('/generate1','http://tutorialsbay.org/');
      $routes->connect('/generate_url',['controller'=>'Generates','action'=>'index']);
      $routes->fallbacks('DashedRoute');
   });
   Plugin::routes();

Execute the above example by visiting the following URLs.

  • URL 1 — http://localhost:85/CakePHP/generate_url
  • URL 2 — http://localhost:85/CakePHP/generate1
  • URL 3 — http://localhost:85/CakePHP/generate2

Output for URL 1

Output for URL 2

Output for URL 3