Django

As part of the Django 1.3 release process, tonight we've released Django 1.3 beta 1, a preview/testing package that gives a little taste of some of the new features coming in Django 1.3. As with all alpha and beta packages, this is not for production ... [More] use, but if you'd like to try out some of the new goodies coming in 1.3, or if you'd like to pitch in and help us fix bugs before the final 1.3 release (due in January), feel free to grab a copy and give it a spin. Also, note that this beta release contains the patches mentioned in the security announcement earlier today. If you're using Django 1.3 alpha 1, you're urged to upgrade to beta 1 or apply the trunk patches immediately. You can get a copy of the 1.3 beta package from our downloads page, and we recommend you read the release notes. Also, for the security conscious, signed MD5 and SHA1 checksums of the 1.3 beta package are available. [Less]

Today the Django team is issuing multiple releases -- Django 1.2.4, Django 1.1.3 and Django 1.3 beta 1 -- to remedy two security issues reported to us. All users of affected versions of Django are urged to upgrade immediately. Information ... [More] leakage in Django administrative interface The Django administrative interface, django.contrib.admin, supports filtering of displayed lists of objects by fields on the corresponding models, including across database-level relationships. This is implemented by passing lookup arguments in the querystring portion of the URL, and options on the ModelAdmin class allow developers to specify particular fields or relationships which will generate automatic links for filtering. One historically-undocumented and -unofficially-supported feature has been the ability for a user with sufficient knowledge of a model's structure and the format of these lookup arguments to invent useful new filters on the fly by manipulating the querystring. As reported to us by Adam Baldwin, however, this can be abused to gain access to information outside of an admin user's permissions; for example, an attacker with access to the admin and sufficient knowledge of model structure and relations could construct querystrings which -- with repeated use of regular-expression lookups supported by the Django database API -- expose sensitive information such as users' password hashes. To remedy this, django.contrib.admin will now validate that querystring lookup arguments either specify only fields on the model being viewed, or cross relations which have been explicitly whitelisted by the application developer using the pre-existing mechanism mentioned above. This is backwards-incompatible for any users relying on the prior ability to insert arbitrary lookups, but as this "feature" was never documented or supported, we do not consider it to be an issue for our API-stability policy. The release notes for Django 1.3 beta 1 -- which will include this change -- will, however, note this difference from previous Django releases. Denial-of-service attack in password-reset mechanism Django's bundled authentication framework, django.contrib.auth, offers views which allow users to reset a forgotten password. The reset mechanism involves generating a one-time token composed from the user's ID, the timestamp of the reset request converted to a base36 integer, and a hash derived from the user's current password hash (which will change once the reset is complete, thus invalidating the token). The code which verifies this token, however, does not validate the length of the supplied base36 timestamp before attempting to convert it. An attacker with sufficient knowledge of a site's URL configuration and the manner in which the reset token is constructed can, then, craft a request containing an arbitrarily-large (up to the web server's maximum supported URL length) base36 integer, which Django will blindly attempt to convert back into a timestamp. As reported to us by Paul McMillan, the time required to attempt this conversion on ever-larger numbers will consume significant server resources, and many such simultaneous requests will result in an effective denial-of-service attack. Further investigation revealed that the password-reset code blindly converts base36 in multiple places. To remedy this, the base36_to_int() function in django.utils.http will now validate the length of its input; on input longer than 13 digits (sufficient to base36-encode any 64-bit integer), it will now raise ValueError. Additionally, the default URL patterns for django.contrib.auth will now enforce a maximum length on the relevant parameters. Affected versions Both of the issues described above are present in the following currently-supported Django versions: Django development trunk Django 1.2 Django 1.1 Resolution Patches have been applied to Django trunk, and to the 1.2 and 1.1 release branches, which resolve both issues described above. The patches may be obtained directly from the appropriate changesets: Django trunk: changeset 15031 for the admin issue and changeset 15032 for the password-token issue. Django 1.2: changeset 15033 for the admin issue and changeset 15034 for the password-token issue. Django 1.1: changeset 15035 for the admin issue and changeset 15036 for the password-token issue. The following new releases have been issued: Django 1.2.4 (download | checksums) Django 1.1.3 (download | checksums) Django 1.3 beta 1, which will contain the patch from Django trunk, will also be issued later today. General notes regarding security As always, we ask that potential security issues be reported via private email to [email protected], and not via Django's Trac instance or the django-developers list Due to the impending Christmas and New Year's holiday, our normal process of notifying distributors of Django one week in advance of security-releated release was shortened somewhat to allow these releases to be issued before most Django users take their holiday vacations. If you are or represent a third-party distributor of Django and did not receive a notification email from the Django release manager, please contact [email protected]. [Less]

Once again, astute observers will have noted a missed deadline: November 29 has come and gone, but Django 1.3 beta 1 hasn't been released. In this case, the delay has been caused by a desire to deliver on everything that has been discussed over the ... [More] last few months. The release of Beta 1 marks the full feature freeze for Django 1.3, and there are lots of little features that have been discussed at length, and are very close to completion, but haven't been committed to trunk. Rather than defer these features to the 1.4, we've opted to push the release schedule by a couple of weeks to let the last few commits happen. At this point, the outstanding issues are: #7817: Modification of the {% with %} to support multiple assignment #9456: Modification of the {% include %} tag to support subtemplate assignment #11675: Addition of a pylibmc cache backend #14844: dealing with pluralization rules in {% blocktrans %} Some administrative i18n issues, aimed at allowing translators to use Transifex to keep translations up to date In order to accommodate these last features, we've decided to push the Beta 1 release until December 21. To ensure that we have enough time for fixing bugs once the beta has been released, we're also going to push the final release date by 2 weeks. This means the 1.3 release candidate should be released on January 24, followed by a final 1.3 release on January 31. Once the beta has been released, we will be focussing on bug fixes. We will be using the Ready For Checkin list as the working list, so if you have a bug you want to see fixed, make sure it has been reviewed and is correctly tagged for as being ready for checkin. We also need assistance triaging the list of unreviewed tickets. If you're not sure what you need to do in order to get your ticket ready for checkin, read the contribution guide; we also have a work-in-progress HowTo guide that may help clarify what is needed. If you're still not sure, try asking on the #django-dev IRC channel for a push in the right direction. [Less]

The DjangoCon organizing committee, led by Steve Holden, has just announced that DjangoCon US 2011 will be held in Portland, Oregon, from September 6-8 2011. This will be followed by a couple of days of sprints. We are also exploring the possibility ... [More] of running tutorials on the day before (September 5). There will be a change of venue from the last two years -- we've shifted to the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower. This is located right in the middle of downtown Portland, so it should be a lot more convenient for dinner and other social activities. The budget hasn't been finalized yet, but we will be aiming to keep registration fees comparable to DjangoCon US 2010. However, we have already negotiated complimentary internet for everyone staying at the hotel, and throughout the ballroom where the conference will be taking place. Although there was some interest in looking at other venues, due to the relatively short time frame, it was necessary to stick to Portland for at least one more year. To that end -- if you are interested in hosting DjangoCon US 2012 in a location other than Portland, now is the time to start organizing. Jump on the DjangoCon organizers mailing list an let us know that you want to help out. And if you want to help organize DjangoCon US 2011, jump on the same list! Hope to see you in Portland in September! [Less]

In order to assist in the timely release of Django 1.3, we are holding a series of Django development sprints over the next couple of weeks. This weekend, on Saturday November 13, there will be 2 sprints held in parallel. One sprint will be ... [More] held at the betahaus coworking space in Berlin, Germany. The second will be at several locations around Argentina. In three weeks time there will be another sprint -- this time, a 2 day sprint (December 4 and 5), held in Sydney, Australia. This sprint will be hosted by The Interaction Consortium. If you can't make it to Argentina, Berlin, or Sydney in person, you can join us in the #django-sprint IRC channel and help out that way. For more information on the plans for these sprints, please check out the wiki pages. If you plan on attending, please add your name to the list so that the organizers know how many people to expect. If you want to know what to work on, or you've never been sprinting before and want to know what to expect, check out the wiki page on ideas for sprints. Hope to see you there! [Less]

As part of the Django 1.3 release process, tonight we've released Django 1.3 alpha 1, a preview/testing package that gives a little taste of some of the new features coming in Django 1.3. As with all alpha and beta packages, this is not for ... [More] production use, but if you'd like to try out some of the new goodies coming in 1.3, or if you'd like to pitch in and help us fix bugs before the final 1.3 release (due in January), feel free to grab a copy and give it a spin. You can get a copy of the 1.3 alpha package from our downloads page, and we recommend you read the release notes. Also, for the security conscious, signed MD5 and SHA1 checksums of the 1.3 alpha package are available. [Less]

Astute observers will have noted that October 18 has come and gone, but Django 1.3 alpha 1 hasn't been released. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, we landed a number of big features very close to the original planned release date, including ... [More] class-based views, a static media framework, and a context manager for transactions. However, we're still seeing some sporadic bug reports for these features. We don't expect that the alpha will be bug-free, but we'd like to avoid cutting a release with any completely boneheaded mistakes in it, so we're going to wait a little bit for the dust to settle before we produce the alpha. Secondly, James Bennett, our release manager, has been particularly busy of late, and hasn't been in a position to turn the crank handle that makes the release. Although our bus factor for making releases is low, it is greater than 1 -- if James is unable to find time to make the release once the time comes, there are a couple of other people on the core team (including myself and Jacob) that know how to produce a release should the need arise. This delay only affects the alpha -- it doesn't change the overall schedule. With any luck, we should have an alpha by this time next week. After that, we're still targeting a beta (and full feature freeze) at the end of November, and a final release for January 17 next year. If you have a little feature that you want to see in Django 1.3, now is the time to make sure the your patch is in good condition, and join us on the Django-developers mailing list or on #django-dev on IRC to advocate for the features your want to see. [Less]

Django 1.2 has been in the wild for a couple of months, and we've had plenty of time to talk about what we want to see in Django 1.3. That means it's time to pick features and nominate some deadlines. From the feedback from DjangoCon, and from ... [More] conversations on the mailing lists and IRC, it's fairly clear that people are happy with the new features that have been added with Django 1.1 and 1.2. However, there is also concern about the growing backlog of bugs and minor feature requests that have accrued while we work on these big features. For this reason, Django 1.3 is going to be light on big new features, and heavy on bugfixes and little features. We'll still have a couple of big features -- most likely those features that have missed previous release, such as logging and class-based generic views. However, for the bulk of the release, we're going to try and focus on getting the open ticket count down. Here's the release schedule: October 18, 2010 -- Django 1.3 alpha; major feature freeze November 29, 2010 -- Django 1.3 beta; complete feature freeze January 10, 2011 -- Django 1.3 RC1; translation string freeze January 17, 2011 -- Django 1.3 final Full details, an explanation of the schedule, and suggestions on how to help out can be found in the 1.3 Roadmap. So dig in! There's plenty of work to do, and the more volunteers we have, the better Django 1.3 will be! [Less]

Today the Django team has released Django 1.2.3, which remedies several issues with the recent 1.2.2 package. This package corrects the following problems: The patch applied for the security issue covered in Django 1.2.2 caused issues with ... [More] non-ASCII responses using CSRF tokens. This has been remedied. The patch also caused issues with some forms, most notably the user-editing forms in the Django administrative interface. This has been remedied. The packaging manifest did not contain the full list of required files. This has been remedied. All users of Django are encouraged to upgrade to Django 1.2.3 immediately; the 1.2.3 package can be obtained from the Django downloads page, and as always signed checksums for the package are available. [Less]

Today the Django team is issuing a new release -- Django 1.2.2 -- to remedy a security issue reported to us. This issue was disclosed independently by two different parties, and all users of Django 1.2 are urged to upgrade immediately. ... [More] Description of issue As of the 1.2 release, the core Django framework includes a system, enabled by default, for detecting and preventing cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks against Django-powered applications. Previous Django releases provided a different, optionally-enabled system for the same purpose. The Django 1.2 CSRF protection system involves the generation of a random token, inserted as a hidden field in outgoing forms. The same value is also set in a cookie, and the cookie value and form value are compared on submission. The provided template tag for inserting the CSRF token into forms -- {% csrf_token %} -- explicitly trusts the cookie value, and displays it as-is. Thus, an attacker who is able to tamper with the value of the CSRF cookie can cause arbitrary content to be inserted, unescaped, into the outgoing HTML of the form, enabling cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. This issue was first reported via a public ticket in Django's Trac instance; while being triaged it was then independently reported, with broader description, by Jeff Balogh of Mozilla. Affected versions Django development trunk Django 1.2 Because the current CSRF-protection system is new as of Django 1.2, older releases are unaffected. Resolution Patches have been applied to Django trunk and to the 1.2 release branch to ensure the cookie value is never trusted and is always escaped. Future Django releases may migrate away from the use of a dedicated cookie to avoid the possibility of such issues. Patches may be obtained directly from the appropriate changesets: Django trunk: Changeset 13698 Django 1.2: Changeset 13699 The following release has been issued: Django 1.2.2 (download | checksums) General notes regarding security As always, we ask that potential security issues be reported via private email to [email protected], and not via Django's Trac instance or the django-developers list. Due to the time-sensitive nature of this issue, our normal process of advance notification of distributors of Django was not followed; notification to distributors was sent just prior to issuance of this release. If you are or represent a third-party distributor of Django and did not receive a notification email from the Django release manager, please contact [email protected]. [Less]