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joplin/readme/dev/spec/note_viewer_isolation.md

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Note viewer isolation

The desktop application's note viewer runs in an iframe with a different protocol from the main application's top-level frame.

Rationale

Running the note viewer from a different protocol and/or domain moves the iframe's content to a separate process. This has at least two benefits:

  1. Reduces the impact of bugs in Joplin's HTML sanitizer.
  2. Improves performance when rendering large notes (see issue #10424).

Why does a different protocol improve performance/security?

Using a different domain and/or protocol for the note viewer does the following:

  1. enables Chromium's site isolation and
  2. prevents the note viewer from accessing the top-level context through window.top.

The protocol

We use Electron's protocol.handle to register the joplin-content:// protocol.

We use a file:// URL to load the base electron application.

We use a joplin-content://note-viewer/ URL to load the note viewer and the resources it contains.

For compatibility with renderer plugins that use absolute resource paths joplin-content://note-viewer/ fetches files relative to the / directory.

Here's an example:

  • The note viewer loads with the URL joplin-content://note-viewer/tmp/.mount_JoplinA7E0A/path/to/the/note/viewer/here.html
  • The note renders and includes a resource with the path /home/user/.config/joplin-desktop/path/here.css
  • /home/user/.config/joplin-desktop/path/here.css is converted to joplin-content://note-viewer/home/user/.config/joplin-desktop/path/here.css by Electron.
  • Joplin checks to make sure the joplin-content:// protocol has access to /home/user/.config/joplin-desktop/path/here.css. If it does, it fetches and returns the file.

joplin-content://note-viewer/ only has access to specific directories

When handleCustomProtocols creates a handler for the joplin-content:// protocol, it returns an object that allows certain directories to be marked as readable.

By default, the list of readable directories includes:

  • The app bundle
  • Data directories for each of the enabled plugins
  • The resource directory
  • The profile directory

joplin-content://file-media/ can only load specific file types

To allow images and videos with file:// URLs, Joplin maps file:// URIs to joplin-content://file-media/. The file-media/ host has the following restrictions:

  • Only files with certain extensions/content-types can be loaded.
    • For example, text/html is disallowed but image/png is allowed.
  • A valid ?access-key=<...> parameter must be provided with the request.
    • A new access key is created for each render and old access keys are revoked.

Why not the sandbox property?

Enabling sandbox disables Electron's PDF viewer (related HTML spec change) and prevents content within the note viewer from displaying/requesting resources.