Oracle® Fusion Middleware
Part 15. Content Filters

The API Gateway can check the request query string to ensure that only properly configured name and value pairs appear. Regular expressions are used to test the attribute values. This enables you to make decisions on what to do with the message (for example, if the query sting value is X, route to service X)

You can configure the following sections on the Validate Query String screen:

You can configure the global White list and Black list libraries of regular expressions under the Libraries node in the Policy Studio tree.

The request query string is the portion of the URL that comes after the ? character, and contains the request parameters. It is typically used for HTTP GET requests in which form data is submitted as name-value pairs on the URL. This contrasts with the HTTP POST method where the data is submitted in the body of the request. The following example shows a request URL that contains a query string:

http://hostname.com/services/getEmployee?first=john&last=smith

In this example, the query string is first=john&last=smith. Query strings consist of attribute name-value pairs, and each name-value pair is separated by the & character.

The Query String Validation filter can also operate on the form parameters submitted in an HTTP Form POST. Instead of encoding the request parameters in the query string, the client uses the application/x-www-form-urlencoded content-type, and submits the parameters in the HTTP POST body, for example:

POST /services/getEmployee HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:8095
Content-Length: 21
SOAPAction: HelloService
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
    
first=john&last=smith

If the API Gateway receives an HTTP request body such as this, the Query String Validation filter can validate the form parameters.

The Enter Regular Expression table displays the list of configured query string names together with the white list of regular expressions that restrict their values. For this filter to run successfully, all required attributes must be present in the request, and all must have the correct value.

The Name column shows the name of the query string attribute. The Regular Expression column shows the name of the regular expression that the API Gateway uses to restrict the value of the named query string attribute. A number of common regular expressions are available from the global White list library.

If the Allow unspecified names checkbox is selected, additional unnamed query string attributes are not filtered by the API Gateway. For example, this is useful if you are interested in filtering the content of only a small number of query string attributes but the request may contain many attributes. In such cases, you only need to filter those few attributes, and by selecting this checkbox, the API Gateway ignores all other query string attributes.

Configure a regular expression

You can configure regular expressions by selecting the Add, Edit, and Delete buttons. The Configure Regular Expression dialog enables you to add or edit regular expressions to restrict the values request query string attributes. To configure a regular expression, perform the following steps:

Advanced settings

The Advanced section enables you to extract a portion of the query string attribute value that is run against the regular expression. The extracted substring can also be Base64 decoded if necessary. The following is an example of a URL containing a query string. The value of the password attribute is Base64 encoded, and must be extracted from the query string and decoded before it is run against the regular expression.

http://oracle.com/services?username=user&password=dXNlcg0K&dept=eng

You can extract the encoded value of the password= attribute value by specifying the string that occurs directly before the substring you want to extract, together with the string that occurs directly after the substring. Enter password= in the Start substring field, and & in the End substring field.

By specifying the correct substrings, you are left with the Base64-encoded attribute value (dXNlcg0K). However, you still need to Base64 decode it before you can run a regular expression on it. Make sure to select the Base64 decode checkbox. The Base64-decoded password value is simply user. This is the value that you want to run the regular expression against.

By specifying the correct substrings, you are left with the Base64-encoded attribute value (dXNlcg0K). However, you still need to Base64 decode it before you can run a regular expression on it. Make sure to select the Base64 decode checkbox. The Base64-decoded password value is user. This is the value that you need to run the regular expression against.

The regular expressions entered in this section guard against the possibility of a query string attribute containing malicious content. The Enter Threatening Content Regular Expression table lists the Black list of regular expressions to run to ensure that the header values do not contain threatening content.

For example, to guard against an SQL DELETE attack, you can write a regular expression to identify SQL syntax and add it to this list. The Threatening Content Regular Expressions are listed in a table. All of these expressions are run against all attribute values in the query string. If the expression matches any of the values, the filter fails.

You can add threatening content regular expressions using the Add button. You can edit or remove existing expressions by selecting them in the drop-down list and clicking the Edit or Delete button.

You can enter the regular expressions manually or select them from the global Black list library of threatening content regular expressions. This library is pre-populated with regular expressions that guard against common attack signatures. These include a expressions to guard against common SQL injection style attacks (for example, SQL INSERT, SQL DELETE, and so on), buffer overflow attacks (content longer than 1024 characters), and the presence of control characters in attribute values (ASCII Control Character).

Enter or select an appropriate regular expression to restrict the value of the specified query string. You can add a regular expression to the library by selecting the Add/Edit button. Enter a Name for the expression followed by the Regular Expression.