Installation & Basic Usage

Install via pip:

pip install flask-ipban

After installing, wrap your Flask app with an IpBan, or call ip_ban.init_app(app):

from flask import Flask
from flask_ipban import IpBan

app = Flask(__name__)
ip_ban = IpBan(ban_seconds=200)
ip_ban.init_app(app)

The repository includes a small example application.

Options

• app, Flask application to monitor. Use ip_ban.init_app(app) to intialise later on.

• ban_count, default 20, Number of observations before banning.

• ban_seconds, default 60, Number of seconds ip address is banned.

• persist, default False, Persist ban list between restarts, using records in the report_dir folder.

• report_dir, default None, Override the location of persistence and report files.

• ipc, default True, Allow multiple instances of ip_ban to cross communicate using the report_dir.

• secret_key, default flask secret key, Key to sign reports in the report_dir.

• ip_header, default None, Optional name of request header that contains the ip for use behind proxies when in docker/kube hosted env.

Methods

• init_app(app) - Initialise and start ip_ban with the given Flask application.

• block(ip_address, permanent=False) - block the specific address optionally forever

• add(ip=None, url=None, reason='404') - increase the observations for the current request ip or given ip address

Example for add:

from flask import Flask
from flask_ipban import IpBan

app = Flask(__name__)
ip_ban = IpBan(app)

@route('/login', methods=['GET','POST']
def login:
    # ....
    # increment block if wrong passwords to prevent password stuffing
    # ....
    if request.method == 'POST':
        if request.arg.get('password') != 'secret':
            ip_ban.add(reason='bad password')

• remove(ip_address) - remove the given ip address from the ban list. Returns true if ban removed.

• url_pattern_add('reg-ex-pattern', match_type='regex') - exclude any url matching the pattern from checking

Example of url_pattern_add:

from flask import Flask
from flask_ipban import IpBan

app = Flask(__name__)
ip_ban = IpBan(app)
ip_ban.url_pattern_add('^/whitelist$', match_type='regex')
ip_ban.url_pattern_add('/flash/dance', match_type='string')

• url_pattern_remove('reg-ex-pattern') - remove pattern from the url whitelist

• url_block_pattern_add('reg-ex-pattern', match_type='regex') - add any url matching the pattern to the block list. match_type can be ‘string’ or ‘regex’. String is direct match. Regex is a regex pattern.

• url_block_pattern_remove('reg-ex-pattern') - remove pattern from the url block list

• ip_whitelist_add('ip-address') - exclude the given ip from checking

• ip_whitelist_remove('ip-address') - remove the given ip from the ip whitelist

Example of ip_whitelist_add

from flask import Flask
from flask_ipban import IpBan

app = Flask(__name__)
ip_ban = IpBan(app)
ip_ban.whitelist_add('127.0.0.1')

• load_nuisances(file_name=None) - add a list of nuisances to url pattern block list from a file. See below for more information.

Example:

ip_ban = IpBan()
app = Flask(__name__)
ip_ban.init_app(app)
ip_ban.load_nuisances()

Url patterns

Url matching match_type can be ‘string’ or ‘regex’. String is direct match. Regex is a regex pattern.

Nuisance file

ip_ban includes a file of common web nuisances that should not be allowed on a flask site. It includes:

• Blocking any non flask extension such as .jsp, .asp etc.

• Known hacking urls.

Nuisance urls are only checked as a result of a 404. If you have legitimate routes that use nuisance url patterns they won’t result in a block.

Load them by calling ip_ban.load_nuisances()

You can add your own nuisance yaml file by calling with the parameter file_name=.

See the nuisance.yaml file in the source for formatting and details.

IPC and persistence

By default ip_ban writes out each 404/ban event to a file in the record_dir folder, which has a default in linux of /tmp/flask-ip-ban. This folder has to be writable by the process running your app. Obviously if you use multiple different apps they can share ip_ban reporting. Each record is signed with the secret_key, so this must be shared amongst all applications that use the record_dir folder. The secret_key is by default the flask secret key.

Only ip records using the block, add and remove methods or by 404; are persisted or shared. Any whitelisting or pattern bans are not presisted/shared and must be done for each instance of your application.

IP Header

When running a flask app in a docker hosted environment (or similar) the ip address will be the virtual adapter ip and won’t change for differing request. Use your proxy server to set the real IP address in a header so that ip-ban can find what it really is. For apache:

Licensing

• Apache 2.0