Thursday, November 26, 2009

Generating SVG Output (from Graphviz) in your Django App

So accomplishing new coding tasks can be a challenge with interruptions and I've had a lot of interruptions this week but I finally got there. And I'm thankful!

I have an app that is storing data, meaning Django models for the uninitiated. What is in there doesn't matter, but it is something that is conducive to plotting with graphviz. So the starting point is a string that is in the .dot format. I have some code that makes queries to the database and I end up with a string.

So there is a utility function that creates this string...

def make_svg_str:
#blah blah blah snip
dot_string += "}"
p = subprocess.Popen('/usr/bin/dot -Tsvg', shell=True,\
stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
(stdout,stderr) = p.communicate(dot_string)
return stdout

So I almost got this right the first time except that I forgot the stdout in Popen() which caused the output to go to stdout (and not be assigned to the string) so I saw the .xml in the dev web server logs.

The graphviz string (dot_string) is being piped to the dot executable and then the function is returning the XML SVG as a string, and is obviously assigned to the stdout variable in the tuple.

Now the tricky part within my views.py.

My first mistake was using the Django CSV docs instead of the PDF docs because the latter is what we need. I also didn't remember that HttpResponse is a file-like object so we can can just write to it once we have the SVG text.

def svg(request):
f = Foo.objects.all()
response = HttpResponse(mimetype='image/svg+xml')
response['Content-Disposition'] = 'filename=somefilename.svg'
response.write(make_svg_str(f))
return response

So this will display your image within your browser (which is what I wanted) instead of downloading file if you the use the "attachment" in the Content-Disposition key.

The name of the game is taking shortcuts that get the job done. I'm using the admin interface to provide a good-enough UI to enter the data and now I'm using Graphviz to visualize that data without having to spend a lot of time writing UIs or nasty JavaScript.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Where's the Controversy about Shodan?



So like a lot of folks I spent no more than 15 minutes this morning googling Shodan for anything interesting. I looked for SCADA protocols (there were none that I could easily find) or obvious field automation devices, so I went back to work. At best I found a bunch of VxWorks systems (and whole lot of ESX servers, shiver) and others like @chrisjager have also commented about the large number of embedded devices directly connected to the Internet, which is, indeed, frightening.

But @taosecurity just made some interesting comments, questioning how long the site will be up and hit upon in the ethical issues of a site which so obviously allows easy amplification of vulnerable systems. This was the first I've seen that even considers this angle. I'm not sure if everybody is getting ready for the holidays, trying to get the last bit of work done, or already gone but at least on the 300+ plus folks I follow on Twitter there were absolutely no questions about the site, and whether or not such as site was appropriate, ethical, etc. Just to be clear, I'm not claiming it is or is not, I'm just surprised it hasn't come up yet either way. Now if and when this happens (perhaps everyone else is so jaded and just does not want to go there) I'm sure the arguments will quickly fall into the typical cliched responses around disclosure:
  • The site is raising awareness so is a good thing. Administrators can actually find and fix their systems.
  • Anyone who has systems directly connected to the Internet with systems that vulnerable deserves to be compromised.
  • The site is irresponsible and we should immediately DDoS it
And so on...

I don't actually believe any of those arguments. I'm not sure what to think. And I find that troubling. After nearly a decade in information security, I've become weary of all the arguments on either side of these sorts disclosure issue so I resort to know opinion because my opinion doesn't really matter and folks will release 0-days (or not) or more interesting sites like this (or not) and what will happen will happen regardless of any international standards or documented best practice working groups.

So back to trying to find a way to graphviz to generate SVG images within a Django app. That is at least a problem I can solve.