ckanext-webpageviewplus

A safer, more capable replacement for CKAN's built-in rudimentary webpage_view. It embeds web pages and uploaded HTML in an <iframe> with a security preset per view, modern iframe attributes, and optionally a separate content origin, so uploaded HTML (such as qsv Data Schematics) can run fully without being able to act as CKAN. It uses its own view type (webpage_view_plus), so it runs beside webpage_view while you migrate.

What it protects you from. Out of the box, CKAN serves an uploaded HTML file inline on its own origin, so anyone who opens it runs its scripts as CKAN, with their login. Stock webpage_view frames it the same way, unsandboxed. This plugin:

• never lets a frame run scripts with CKAN's origin: uploads and CKAN's own pages are always sandboxed, and unsandboxed external frames need a content origin;
• adds a CSP sandbox header to HTML, SVG and XML that CKAN itself serves (resource downloads and the resource proxy), see Downloads;
• with a content origin, moves uploaded HTML off CKAN's origin entirely.

Compared with webpage_view:

CKAN's warning about webpage_view. CKAN's data viewer docs say not to enable webpage_view unless you trust the URL sources, nor where all users can create datasets. This plugin removes the risk to CKAN itself: no framed page or upload can run scripts as CKAN, editors can't loosen a view's sandbox (editor_can_loosen is off by default), and sites can limit the presets (presets) and the hosts a view's own page URL may point to (allowed_hosts). allowed_hosts doesn't cover a view that leaves its page URL empty and frames the resource's URL, so anyone who can create a resource still chooses what it frames. What a framed page shows is up to its source: a sandbox limits what a page can reach, not its content, so a page can still be misleading, open popups (interactive) or load trackers (see the consent gate and credentialless). Where anyone can create datasets, set content_origin, keep editor_can_loosen off, and consider ckanext.webpageviewplus.presets = strict interactive data-schematic; set allowed_hosts to the sites you embed with a page URL.

Requirements

A content origin (optional) needs a second, separately registered domain (not a subdomain or sibling of CKAN's), pointed at the same CKAN through your reverse proxy. See Deploying a content origin.

Browser support

Supported: Chrome and Edge 88+, Firefox 89+ and Safari 15+ (macOS, iOS and iPadOS), all from 2021. In these, every view lays out as configured. A few extras (lazy loading, element fullscreen, Share) need newer versions and fall back as shown below. The browser tests run in current Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. Internet Explorer isn't supported.

The protection works in every browser still in use. It rests on the iframe sandbox attribute (Chrome 5, Firefox 17, Safari 5) and the CSP sandbox header on downloads (Chrome 25, Firefox 50, Safari 7), not on the script or newer features. The one exception is the optional credentialless setting, which only Chromium 110+ applies. Other browsers ignore it, and the rest of the protection doesn't depend on it.

In older browsers, a view still shows its page, with less around it:

For reference, the current versions as of October 2026 are Chrome 157, Edge 156, Firefox 159 and Safari 27 (macOS and iOS). Minimum versions and dates are from MDN's browser-compat-data.

Without JavaScript (turned off, or the script blocked), frames still render with their sandbox and attributes, but:

• auto-height frames keep their fallback height (600 px, within min_height/max_height);
• the bar shows only Open in new tab, if the site's controls include it;
• views held back by the consent card or Save-Data can't be loaded in place (Open in new tab still works when the bar includes it);
• with view counting on, impressions are still counted (on the server), but not seen, loaded, used or failed.

Installation

1. Activate your CKAN virtual environment, for example:

   . /usr/lib/ckan/default/bin/activate
   

2. Install the extension:

   pip install ckanext-webpageviewplus
   

   (or, for unreleased changes, pip install git+https://github.com/dathere/ckanext-webpageviewplus.git)

3. Add webpage_view_plus to ckan.plugins in your CKAN config file (by default /etc/ckan/default/ckan.ini). Keep webpage_view enabled until you've migrated.

4. Create the plugin's tables (used only by opt-in view counting, connection reports and the frameability check, but run it anyway so turning those on later just works). Run it again after every upgrade:

   ckan -c /etc/ckan/default/ckan.ini db upgrade -p webpage_view_plus
   

5. Restart CKAN. Settings are checked at startup, and an unsafe combination stops CKAN with a message naming the key.

Usage

Add a "Website (Plus)" view to an HTML resource and pick a security preset:

The rule behind the presets: no frame may let scripts keep a real origin while uploaded HTML could still run on CKAN's origin. Such a page could navigate itself to an upload and run it as CKAN. Without a content origin, external and data-schematic therefore run as interactive, and a sandbox combining allow-scripts with allow-same-origin is refused.

Every frame gets loading="lazy", a referrerpolicy, the view's title as its accessible name, and an allow list that always denies ad and tracking features. Editors pick the preset and height (fixed, share of the window, aspect ratio, auto). Sysadmins can also set sandbox tokens, allowed features and the referrer policy per view.

Well-known services. Paste a YouTube, Vimeo, Datawrapper, Flourish, Observable or Tableau Public link as the page URL and the form offers the service's embed address, with the preset and height its embed needs ("Use them"). Nothing is changed until the editor accepts, and what's saved is what's shown. Each embed was checked in Chrome under each preset:

YouTube, Vimeo, Observable and Tableau Public fail inside a sandbox without allow-same-origin, so they need external, and so a content origin. On a site without one, the form says so instead of offering settings that won't play.

Auto height. With height "Auto", the frame takes the height the page reports, clamped to min_height/max_height; until it reports one, it keeps a fixed fallback height. Any page can report its height by posting {type: "webpageviewplus:resize", height: <px>} to its parent. qsv Data Schematics from the release after 27.0.1 do it on their own, and the view also answers their viewport and scroll requests (see the qsv wiki, Visualization#embedding). Only messages from the view's own frame are accepted.

Control bar. Under each view: Open in new tab, Fullscreen, Reload and Share. A site chooses the buttons with ckanext.webpageviewplus.controls, and editors can hide the bar per view.

• Open in new tab and Reload go through CKAN's download URL for uploads, so a private upload's signed link never goes stale.
• Fullscreen becomes Expand where the browser has no element fullscreen (iPhone Safari): the view fills the screen in place, with Close and Esc to leave. While fullscreen, a view that's wider than tall turns an Android phone sideways.
• Share opens the browser's share sheet with the CKAN page's URL (never the framed page's), where navigator.share exists, desktops included.

Theme. ckanext.webpageviewplus.color_scheme = light (or dark) makes framed pages see that as the visitor's colour preference, so a qsv schematic matches the portal. Only Firefox honours it for these frames so far; the default, auto, leaves it to the visitor's OS.

Accessibility, phones and tablets

• A skip link jumps past each frame to its controls, a polite live region announces "title loaded", focus outlines and 24 px targets (44 px on touch screens) work in Windows High Contrast too, and axe-core checks the extension's markup in the browser tests.
• Reflow: at 320 px wide (400% zoom), every frame is at least 600 px tall, and a view that hides its bar still offers Open in new tab (unless the site's controls drops open).
• Responsive height: below narrow_width (576 px of view width by default), views sized by aspect ratio or share of the window take 80% of the screen's height. Fixed and auto heights don't change.
• Tap to interact: on a touch screen, a frame taller than half the screen gets a "Tap to interact" overlay, so a swipe scrolls the page instead of getting stuck in the frame. It comes back once the frame has scrolled out of view.
• Load on tap: when the browser asks to save data (Save-Data: on), a card with a Load button (and the resource's size, when CKAN knows it) stands in for the page until the reader taps it.

Uploaded HTML downloads are sandboxed

With this plugin enabled, HTML, SVG and XML from CKAN's resource downloads and the resource proxy get a Content-Security-Policy: sandbox header without allow-same-origin. Pages still render and run scripts, but in an isolated origin. This changes core behaviour: opened from its download link, a page that needs storage or a real origin (for example a qsv Data Schematic's maps) loses those features. With a content origin, HTML upload downloads redirect there instead, and work fully. Turn the header off with ckanext.webpageviewplus.harden_downloads = false only if you trust everyone who can upload. Doing so also keeps external and data-schematic degraded.

Deploying a content origin

A content origin serves uploaded HTML from a separate site, such as https://example-usercontent.org for a CKAN at https://data.example.org (the way GitHub uses githubusercontent.com). Pages there keep their own origin, so maps, storage and workers work, and the browser keeps them apart from CKAN's pages, cookies and API.

1. Register a separate domain. It must be a different registrable domain, not a subdomain: files.data.example.org or files.example.org is the same site as data.example.org, and can set cookies CKAN reads. Startup checks this against the Public Suffix List and refuses a content origin on the same site as any CKAN host.

2. Give it DNS and TLS, and proxy it to the same CKAN. Keep ckan.site_url as it is. With nginx:

   server {
       listen 443 ssl;
       server_name example-usercontent.org;
       ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/example-usercontent.org.pem;
       ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/example-usercontent.org.key;
       gzip on;
       gzip_types text/html;
       location /webpageviewplus/content/ {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:5000;   # the same CKAN
           proxy_set_header Host $host;        # required, see below
           proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
       }
       # only needed with connection_reports = true
       location /webpageviewplus/report/ {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:5000;
           proxy_set_header Host $host;
           proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
       }
       location / { return 404; }
   }
   

   The proxy must pass the original Host header (proxy_set_header Host $host in nginx, ProxyPreserveHost On in Apache, and the same in any CDN in front of it). CKAN recognises the content domain by that header. Only on it does CKAN answer the content route alone and 404 everything else. If the header is rewritten, the whole CKAN site answers on the content domain. Check it after deploying: curl -I https://example-usercontent.org/dataset/ must return 404.

3. Configure CKAN, with a fresh 32+ character secret (for example from python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(48))"):

   ckanext.webpageviewplus.content_origin = https://example-usercontent.org
   ckanext.webpageviewplus.signing_secret = <secret>
   # optional: how long a private resource's content URL lasts (one to two windows)
   ckanext.webpageviewplus.url_ttl = 300
   

4. Restart CKAN. Views of HTML uploads now load from the content origin, and external/data-schematic stop degrading.

How content is served:

• Public datasets get a stable, unsigned URL, sent with an ETag and Cache-Control: public, no-cache. A CDN in front of the content origin may store it, but checks with CKAN before each reuse (a cheap 304 while unchanged). So a dataset made private stops being served at once, even through the CDN.
• Private datasets get a URL signed with the secret when CKAN renders the view, after its normal access check. It stays valid for one to two url_ttl windows, and is sent with Cache-Control: private, max-age=<url_ttl>, so only the viewer's own browser keeps a copy, for at most that long. Anyone holding a signed URL can open it until it expires, so keep url_ttl short. Rotating signing_secret invalidates every signed URL for new requests; copies already in a viewer's browser last until their max-age runs out.
• Responses send frame-ancestors (only CKAN's hosts may frame them) and nosniff, and never set a cookie.
• Only filesystem uploads are served for now. With a cloud storage uploader (for example ckanext-cloudstorage), uploads stay framed from CKAN's origin under the sandbox.
• Rollback: unset content_origin and restart. No data changes, and views fall back to the sandboxed behaviour.

Frameability check (optional)

With ckanext.webpageviewplus.frameability_check = true, the view form warns as an editor types a page URL whose site refuses to be framed (X-Frame-Options, or a CSP frame-ancestors that excludes your CKAN), and suggests linking to it instead. It never blocks saving.

A card instead of a blank frame. Saving a view checks its page once more (at most 5 seconds, redirects included) and stores the answer. A view whose page refuses to be framed then shows a card, "host doesn't allow its pages to be shown inside other sites", with Open in new tab (if the site's controls include it), instead of the empty box browsers draw. Showing a view only reads the stored answer: visitors never make CKAN fetch anything, so a slow site can't hold up dataset pages. An answer counts only for the URL it was taken for, so a view whose page URL changed, or that was never checked, shows its frame as before. Pages that couldn't be checked show their frame too. Keep answers current with check-views (below) from cron.

An http:// page on an https:// site gets a card too, whatever this setting: browsers block it as mixed content. That needs no fetch. With the setting on, so does a page whose stored check found it redirecting to http://.

It makes your CKAN server request URLs that editors type, so it's off by default. If you enable it, the server:

• checks only for users who may add views to that resource;
• fetches only http(s) URLs whose host resolves entirely to public addresses, re-checking every redirect (at most three);
• reads headers only, times out after 5 seconds, and caches each answer for 5 minutes;
• gives the same "couldn't check" answer for every failure, so it can't be used to probe hosts.

Requests go out through any proxy your environment configures for Python requests. One known limit: a host whose DNS answer changes between the check and the connection (DNS rebinding) isn't caught, so keep internal services behind authentication as well.

Finding broken views

ckan webpageviewplus check-views checks every webpage_view_plus and core webpage_view view and lists the ones that can't show their page:

It fetches each URL once per run, with the same guards as the form's check (public addresses only, headers only), whatever frameability_check is set to. Uploads and CKAN's own pages aren't fetched. Options: --dataset NAME, --all (every view, not just broken ones), --json, --timeout SECONDS (per page, default 10), --no-store. It exits with status 1 when any view has a problem, so it fits a cron job that mails its output:

0 4 * * 1  ckan -c /etc/ckan/default/ckan.ini webpageviewplus check-views

It also saves each webpage_view_plus view's answer, which with frameability_check on decides which views show the "doesn't allow" card.

Privacy and telemetry

By default the extension sends no telemetry and adds no tracking. Every frame's allow list denies ad and tracking features (Topics, Attribution Reporting, FLEDGE), and its referrerpolicy keeps the dataset's URL from third-party pages.

• Consent card. A third-party page can wait behind a card ("This view loads content from host") until the reader asks, so nothing is requested from that host before. It's on with consent_gate (for the site, or per view), with privacy_profile = eu for frames running as external, and whenever the browser sends Global Privacy Control (Sec-GPC: 1). Uploads and CKAN's own pages never get it. View pages send Vary: Save-Data, Sec-GPC.
• For a site's own analytics, each view fires DOM events that bubble from its wrapper: webpageviewplus:loaded, webpageviewplus:expanded and webpageviewplus:failed (a load the view started, Load or Reload, that took over 15 s). The extension sends them nowhere.
• Server logs for admins, on the ckanext.webpageviewplus.events logger, with structured fields and nothing about the visitor: view_rendered (preset, notices), same_origin_refused, signature_refused and frameability_blocked.

Opt-in view counting

Off unless a sysadmin sets view_counting = true (which requires an http(s) privacy_policy_url), and then only for views whose editors tick "Count visits". A counted view says "This view counts visits", linking to the privacy policy.

• What's counted: impressions when the view is rendered, then one beacon per page load saying whether the view was seen (half on screen for a second), loaded, used (Load, the bar's buttons, tapping through) or failed. Only per-view daily totals are stored: no IP, user, user agent or referrer. Browsers sending Global Privacy Control, and obvious bots, aren't counted.
• Where to see them: the view's edit form (last 30 days), the webpageviewplus_view_stats_show action (for anyone who can edit the resource), and ckan webpageviewplus stats-summary.
• Retention: run ckan webpageviewplus purge-stats daily from cron; it deletes totals older than view_counting_retention_days (365).
• Anyone can post to the beacon endpoint, so totals can be inflated: treat them as indicative.

What uploaded pages contact

With connection_reports = true (off by default: each report request is a database write) and a content origin, uploaded pages are served with a Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only header, which never blocks anything. Browsers report each fetch from another host (map tiles, a CDN) back to the content origin, and CKAN keeps just the hosts per resource. Read them with the webpageviewplus_connections_show action or ckan webpageviewplus connections; show_connections = true also lists them under the view as "This page connects to". Anyone can post a report, so the list is a hint, not proof. Reports are posted to /webpageviewplus/report/ on the content origin, so its proxy must pass that path to CKAN too (see the nginx example above).

Migrating from webpage_view

ckan webpageviewplus migrate converts webpage_view views in place, keeping their id, title, description, order and page URL. It picks data-schematic for uploads that contain a qsv schematic, and the default preset otherwise. It never stores a preset the site disallows or the rule above refuses: if none fits, it skips the view and says so. Back up the database first, and start with a dry run:

ckan -c /etc/ckan/default/ckan.ini webpageviewplus migrate --dry-run
ckan -c /etc/ckan/default/ckan.ini webpageviewplus migrate [--uploads-only] [--preset NAME]

Without a content origin, if your site embeds third-party apps or dashboards, use --uploads-only. Stock webpage_view runs embedded pages unsandboxed, and a migrated third-party app (running as interactive) would lose its own logins and saved settings. --uploads-only converts just the views of uploaded HTML, which gain the most. Linked pages stay on webpage_view until you set up a content origin.

Config settings

All optional. See ckanext/webpageviewplus/config_declaration.yaml for details.

Commands and API

API actions: webpageviewplus_frameability and webpageviewplus_service_suggest (url, resource_id; for those who may add views; the second fetches nothing), webpageviewplus_view_stats_show (id of a view, optional days) and webpageviewplus_connections_show (id of a resource), both for those who may update the resource.

See CHANGELOG.md for what changed in each release.

Translations

The view, its control bar and the view form come in English, German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Italian (it), Japanese (ja) and Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR), following the visitor's CKAN language. These are first translations: corrections from native speakers are very welcome, as pull requests to ckanext/webpageviewplus/i18n/<locale>/LC_MESSAGES/ckanext-webpageviewplus.po.

To add or update a language (strings follow CKAN's i18n guidelines):

python setup.py extract_messages             # refresh the .pot from the code
python setup.py init_catalog -l de           # a new language, or:
python setup.py update_catalog -l es         # merge new strings into an existing one
# translate the .po, keeping every {placeholder}
python setup.py compile_catalog -l es        # the .mo CKAN reads; commit both

test_i18n.py checks that each catalogue covers every string, keeps its placeholders and matches its .mo. The script takes its labels from the template, so ckan translation js isn't needed for this extension.

Developer installation

To install ckanext-webpageviewplus for development, activate your CKAN virtualenv and do:

git clone https://github.com/dathere/ckanext-webpageviewplus.git
cd ckanext-webpageviewplus
pip install -e .
pip install -r dev-requirements.txt

Tests

To run the tests, do:

pytest --ckan-ini=test.ini

test.ini inherits from /srv/app/src/ckan/test-core.ini, the path in the ckan/ckan-dev Docker images used by CI. Elsewhere, edit its use = config: line to point at your CKAN checkout's test-core.ini. The tests create the plugin's tables themselves (CKAN's fixtures drop them when they reset the test database).

browser_tests/ drives a running CKAN with Playwright in Chromium, Firefox and WebKit; see .github/workflows/test.yml for how CI starts and seeds one.

Releasing a new version of ckanext-webpageviewplus

1. Refresh the translations: python setup.py extract_messages, then update_catalog and, once the new strings are translated, compile_catalog (see Translations).

2. Update the version number in pyproject.toml (see PEP 440), and date the release in CHANGELOG.md.

3. Optionally build locally to catch packaging errors early:

   pip install --upgrade build twine
   rm -rf dist && python -m build && twine check dist/*
   

4. Commit, tag with the version from pyproject.toml, and push:

   git commit -a
   git tag 0.1.0
   git push && git push --tags
   

   Pushing the tag runs publish.yml, which checks that the tag matches pyproject.toml, builds, and publishes to PyPI with trusted publishing (no API token; the job runs in the pypi environment).

License

AGPL