diff --git a/docs/architecture/scripting_sandbox.md b/docs/architecture/scripting_sandbox.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1ebc97 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/architecture/scripting_sandbox.md @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ +# GDScript Sandboxing for User-Written Scripts + +> **Status:** Proposed +> **Owner:** Platform team +> **Related:** Content moderation & age verification (scripts are one of the +> three moderated content types), avatar component system + +## 1. Overview + +This document evaluates how to safely run **user-written scripts** as part of +UGC (user-generated content) in **agp-game**, and recommends an approach. + +**Bottom line: Godot 4 has no built-in security sandbox for GDScript, and +none of the three options named in the original task hold up under testing.** +A script running anywhere inside the Godot process — however it's loaded, +parented, or wrapped — runs with full engine privileges: arbitrary process +execution, full filesystem read/write, and raw network access. Sandboxing +has to happen *outside* the scripting language, not through an in-engine +restriction mechanism, because no such mechanism exists. + +This was verified directly against Godot 4.6.2 (`godot --headless`, evidence +in `sandbox_probe/` on this branch) rather than assumed from documentation, +some of which (see §2.1) describes APIs that don't actually exist in this +version. + +## 2. Options Evaluated + +### 2.1 Godot's built-in "ScriptServer" restrictions — does not exist + +There is no `ScriptServer` class in Godot 4.6.2: + +``` +ClassDB.class_exists("ScriptServer") → false +``` + +There's also no project setting to disable engine subsystems for scripts — +none of `application/run/disable_os`, `disable_file_access`, or +`disable_network` exist as settings, and `ProjectSettings.get_property_list()` +returns nothing matching "sandbox", "restrict", or "security". Any plan that +assumes a flag like this exists needs to be dropped; it was likely conflated +with sandboxing features from a different engine/scripting ecosystem, or +with **export template stripping** (which controls what ships in a build, +not what a script can call at runtime). + +Directly probed capabilities of an ordinary GDScript running as a normal +node script, no special setup: + +| Capability | Available to any script? | +|---|---| +| `OS.execute(...)` — run arbitrary processes | ✅ Yes | +| `FileAccess.open(...)` — read/write any path the OS user can reach | ✅ Yes (read `/etc/hostname`, write `/tmp/...` both succeeded) | +| `TCPServer` / `HTTPClient` / `HTTPRequest` / `PacketPeerUDP` / `WebSocketPeer` | ✅ All instantiate and work | +| `ClassDB.instantiate(...)` — construct any engine class by name | ✅ Yes | +| Loading and running a second script from source text at runtime (`GDScript.new()` + `.reload()`) | ✅ Yes | + +**Verdict: rejected.** There is nothing to configure here — the restriction +surface this option assumed doesn't exist in the engine. + +### 2.2 Isolated SubViewport with a limited API — doesn't isolate scripts + +`SubViewport` is a **rendering and input isolation** primitive (it gives a +scene subtree its own render target and can gate input propagation) — it is +not a security or scripting boundary. A script attached to any node inside a +`SubViewport` still runs in the same process, on the same GDScript VM, with +the exact same access to `OS`, `FileAccess`, networking classes, and +`ClassDB` as a script anywhere else in the tree. Nothing about being +"inside" a SubViewport changes what API calls are reachable from a script. + +**Verdict: rejected.** This solves a rendering/UI-composition problem, not +the security problem the task is asking about. Worth keeping in mind for +other purposes (e.g. isolated preview rendering of user avatars), but it +provides zero script sandboxing. + +### 2.3 Custom GDScript interpreter with an allowlist — right idea, wrong layer for "custom interpreter" + +Two ways to read this option, tested separately: + +**(a) Write/embed a separate GDScript parser+interpreter.** Not +practical — this means re-implementing (and then indefinitely maintaining, +in lockstep with every Godot release) a full language interpreter outside +the engine. Far more engineering than the problem justifies. + +**(b) Use Godot's built-in `Expression` class as a restricted subset.** +`Expression` *looks* like a natural allowlist mechanism — it only evaluates +a single expression, no control flow, no arbitrary statements. But it isn't +safe by default: it can still reach through to unsafe engine methods if you +aren't careful about what object you hand it as a base instance: + +```gdscript +var expr = Expression.new() +expr.parse("get_environment('HOME')", ["OS"]) +expr.execute([], OS) # → "/home/daddy" (successfully called OS.get_environment) +``` + +So `Expression` is a viable building block only if the host **never passes +a base instance (or arguments) that exposes anything sensitive** — i.e. the +allowlisting work still has to happen at the call site, `Expression` itself +enforces none of it. + +**Static text pattern-matching (blocklisting dangerous substrings like +`"OS.execute"` before parsing) was also probed and is not a real +defense** — it's trivially defeated by string concatenation, `call()`, +`Callable`, or any other indirection, and produces false confidence. + +**Verdict: partially viable, but only as a foundation, not a solution on +its own.** A hand-built, narrow, data-driven DSL (not full GDScript, not +raw `Expression`) with an explicit allowlist of safe operations and *no +ability to reference engine singletons or arbitrary objects* is the only +version of "custom interpreter" that's actually safe. This is real +engineering effort, not a config flag. + +## 3. Recommendation + +**Don't run untrusted GDScript in-process at all.** Given none of the three +in-engine options provide a real boundary, the two approaches actually worth +building are, in order of recommended priority: + +1. **Primary: a narrow, non-Turing-complete content DSL**, not general + scripting. Most UGC scripting needs in a game like this (custom + interactions, simple triggers, item behaviors) don't need a general + programming language — they need a small set of declarative + verbs/conditions (e.g. `on_interact: give_item("torch")`, + `on_enter: play_sound("chime")`). Expressed as data (JSON/Resource, not + code) and interpreted by trusted, hand-written GDScript on the engine + side. This has *zero* attack surface by construction — there's no + interpreter to escape because there's no general execution, just a + fixed, reviewed set of verbs. This is almost certainly sufficient for + the actual UGC use cases in this game and should be scoped against real + feature requirements before assuming more is needed. + +2. **If genuinely general scripting becomes a hard requirement**, isolate it + at the OS level, not the engine level: run untrusted scripts in a + **separate process** (a stripped-down Godot instance or a dedicated + interpreter) under OS sandboxing (a restricted user account, a + container, or `firejail`/`bwrap`/seccomp), communicating with the main + game over a narrow IPC/RPC boundary that only exposes intentionally-safe + operations. This is the only approach that provides a real security + boundary for arbitrary code, because it doesn't depend on the scripting + language cooperating — the OS enforces it. Substantially more + infrastructure than option 1; only worth it if option 1's DSL genuinely + can't express what's needed. + +**Do not** attempt in-process GDScript sandboxing via SubViewport, +ScriptServer, or ad hoc blocklisting — all three were directly tested and +none provide a real boundary (§2). + +## 4. Open Questions + +- What do actual planned UGC scripts need to *do*? (Trigger conditions, + simple item/state effects, dialogue branching?) This determines whether + the DSL in §3.1 is sufficient or whether §3.2's process isolation is + needed. Needs a concrete feature list before implementation starts. +- If §3.2 is needed later, does it run per-user-session or shared/pooled? + Affects resource cost and isolation guarantees. +- Interaction with the content moderation pipeline (`content_moderation.md`): + scripts as a moderated content type still need a moderation flag path + regardless of which execution model is chosen — a DSL makes static + analysis of *what a script can possibly do* far easier than it would be + for general code, which is an additional point in its favor. diff --git a/sandbox_probe/probe_scriptserver_check.gd b/sandbox_probe/probe_scriptserver_check.gd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5425c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/sandbox_probe/probe_scriptserver_check.gd @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +extends SceneTree +func _init(): + print("ScriptServer class exists: ", ClassDB.class_exists("ScriptServer")) + var sv = SubViewport.new() + print("SubViewport instantiated: ", sv != null) + quit()