PrizmDoc Viewer v13.23 - Updated
Administrator Guide / Security Guidance
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    Security Guidance
    In This Topic

    Introduction

    This topic covers the essential items that you should consider before deploying your application.

    High Level Architecture

    Typically, your end users will use a client application running in a browser, that will talk to a web application running on your web server. The web application will access PrizmDoc Application Services (PAS) and/or PrizmDoc Server REST APIs.

    In each of those cases, we recommend you use a reverse proxy as an entry point for your solution, and only expose the reverse proxy to the internet.

    One of the options is to use the reverse proxy as a gateway to your web application. In that case, the reverse proxy can be used as a terminator for the incoming HTTPS traffic. Communication between reverse proxy, web application, PAS, and PrizmDoc instances can then use the HTTP protocol.

    If you need the web application, PAS or Server instances to communicate over an untrusted network, or if you need additional security within your local network, please see HTTPS Protocol Support for PAS, HTTPS Protocol Support for PrizmDoc Server for additional information.

    PrizmDoc Server

    PrizmDoc Server Addresses and Ports

    Your solution may need to expose up to two ports for PrizmDoc Server:

    • Public port, specified by the network.publicPort Central Configuration parameter. Expose this port only in the following cases:
      • Your web application and/or web client use PrizmDoc Server API. In this case, the port needs to be exposed to your web client.
      • This PrizmDoc Server instance provides the native rendering of Microsoft Office documents to other PrizmDoc Server instances of your solution. In this case, the port needs to be exposed to your other PrizmDoc Server instances.
    • Cluster port, specified by the network.clustering.clusterPort Central Configuration parameter. Expose this port only when you are running a cluster of PrizmDoc instances, and only to your other PrizmDoc Server instances.

    You can specify binding addresses for those ports using the network.binding.addresses Central Configuration parameter.

    PrizmDoc Server uses a range of internal ports for communication between its microservices, specified by the network.internalStartingPort Central Configuration parameter. Take steps to ensure these ports are not accessible to end-users or the internet.

    HTTPS Protocol Support

    If you need the web application, PAS or Server instances to communicate over an untrusted network, or if you need additional security within your local network, you may want to set them up to support the HTTPS protocol.

    PrizmDoc Server does not accept HTTPS traffic out of the box. In order for your PrizmDoc Server instances to accept HTTPS traffic, you need to set up a reverse proxy alongside every PrizmDoc Server instance, and use it as an HTTPS terminator for that instance. For example, you may set up the reverse proxy to accept incoming HTTPS traffic on port 18681 bound to an external address, and forward that traffic via HTTP to the PrizmDoc Server listening on the same port bound to an internal address.

    If instances within your PrizmDoc cluster need to communicate via HTTPS, you should:

    • use a reverse proxy to route requests to the PrizmDoc Server's cluster port.

    • set network.clustering.scheme Central Configuration parameter to https to make cluster instances route requests to other servers in the cluster via the HTTPS protocol.

    • make sure the necessary certificates are available on your PrizmDoc Server instances.

    If your PrizmDoc Server instance (cluster) running on Linux needs to communicate to a Windows MSO instance (cluster) via HTTPS, you should:

    • use a reverse proxy to route requests to the public port of your PrizmDoc Windows MSO instance (cluster).

    • set fidelity.msOfficeCluster.scheme Central Configuration parameter to https to make your PrizmDoc Server instance (cluster) running on Linux route requests to the PrizmDoc Windows MSO instance (cluster) via the HTTPS protocol.

    • make sure the necessary certificates are available on your PrizmDoc Server instances.

    PrizmDoc Server Administration

    PrizmDoc Server includes a Health Status API to request real-time information about the state and health of the system.

    The Health Status API provides information that can be helpful in diagnosing problems. However, it also contains sensitive information such as the OS version and host ID. Because of this any application accessing the Health Status API of PrizmDoc Server should not be accessible to end-users or the public internet.

    Secure Viewing Sessions

    The central configuration file contains properties that can help prevent users from setting inappropriate values to try and attack the PrizmDoc Server, which could render performance problems with the server. These values are properties in the ViewingSessionProperties object that a client-user passes to PrizmDoc Server to start a viewing session.

    The file paths for the Central Configuration file are:

    • Linux: /usr/share/prizm/prizm-services-config.yml
    • Windows: C:\Prizm\prizm-services-config.yml

    NOTE: The default installation directory is: C:\Prizm.

    For more information on creating secure viewing sessions, refer to the following topics:

    The following configuration properties put limits on viewing session properties sensitive to abusive attacks:

    Central Configuration Properties Example

    # Defines the min and max allowed values for the countOfInitialPages viewing
# session creation option.
#
# viewing.sessionConstraints.countOfInitialPages.min: 0
# viewing.sessionConstraints.countOfInitialPages.max: 10

# A regex which defines the pattern of an acceptable value for the
# documentExtension viewing session creation option.
#
# viewing.sessionConstraints.documentExtension.regex: ".\*"

# A regex which defines the pattern of an acceptable value for the
# externalId viewing session creation option.
#
# viewing.sessionConstraints.externalId.regex: ".\*"

# Defines the list of allowed values for the serverCaching viewing session
# creation option.
#
# Must be an array with one or more of the following strings:
#
# "none" - Allow REST API callers to create a new viewing session with caching
#          explicitly disabled.
#
# "full" - Allow REST API callers to create a new viewing session with caching
#          explicitly enabled.
#
# viewing.sessionConstraints.serverCaching.allowedValues: \["none","full"\]

# Defines the list of allowed values for the alwaysUseRaster viewing session
# creation option.
#
# Must be an array with one or more of the following values:
#
# false - Allow REST API callers to create a new viewing session which will
#         generate both raster and vector page content. Ideal for modern
#         browsers.
# true -  Allow REST API callers to create a new viewing session which will
#         only generate raster content; vector content will not be generated.
#         This is useful for some older browsers.
#
# viewing.sessionConstraints.render.alwaysUseRaster.allowedValues: \[false\]

    Server Side Request Forgery Concerns

    Some source files, such as HTML, email, and Microsoft Office files, reference content that resides on another server. When rendering or converting these kinds of files, PrizmDoc Server may make network requests for this external content. Depending on what your deployment servers have network access to, this can be a security vulnerability. An attacker may leverage this to gain access to internal data and/or cause undesirable behavior. We recommend you take steps to prevent this.

    There are two primary kinds of files you should be concerned with: 1) HTML and email files and 2) Microsoft Office files.

    HTML and Email Files

    HTML code can be found in both HTML and email (EML and MSG) files. When rendering or converting these files, the content may include an HTML tag (like an image or iframe) which refers to external content. The presence of something like an iframe tag could allow an attacker a way to gain access to any URL or HTTP resource in your network, potentially exposing a variety of data you never intended to.

    If you do not need to render or convert HTML or email files, or if you do but you never need to include external content, we recommend you block all requests for external content by setting security.htmlRendering.blockExternalContent to true. When you do this, PrizmDoc Server will avoid making any external requests when rendering or converting HTML and email files.

    Microsoft Office Files

    The PrizmDoc Server running in both LibreOffice and MSO rendering modes disables all Macros for Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats.

    When rendering or converting Office files, Microsoft Office on Windows may make external requests for image data. Please see on the Windows Installation page how to block the traffic for Microsoft Office.

    Additionally, Microsoft Excel may make external requests for text data. If you are using Microsoft Office for rendering, we recommend you disable the Excel WEBSERVICE function:

    • Microsoft Office 2013: change the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Excel 2013 -> Excel Options -> Security -> "WEBSERVICE Function Notification Settings" to "Disabled".
    • Microsoft Office 2016 / 2019: change the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Excel 2016 -> Excel Options -> Security -> "WEBSERVICE Function Notification Settings" to "Disabled".

    Additionally, when using MSO, Microsoft Excel will execute the following spreadsheet formulas which can reveal information about your server:

    • CELL("filename")
    • INFO("osversion")
    • INFO("system")
    • INFO("release")

    Firewall Rules

    In addition to the recommendations above, we also recommend you put in place firewall rules to prevent unintended access to hosts in your network.

    Windows

    On Windows, we recommend setting up per-process firewall rules.

    For HTML and email files, the following PrizmDoc Server executables may make requests for external content:

    • C:\Prizm\modules\wkhtmltopdf.exe
    • C:\Prizm\modules\wkhtmltoimage.exe

    When using Microsoft Office, the following executables are known to potentially request external content:

    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\EXCEL.EXE
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\WINWORD.EXE
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\POWERPNT.EXE
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\WINWORD.EXE
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\POWERPNT.EXE

    When using PrizmDoc Server's built-in LibreOffice, the following executable may make requests for external content:

    • C:\Prizm\libreoffice\program\soffice.bin

    If you do not need to render external content, we recommend you set up firewall rules which prevent all of the above executables from being able to make outgoing network requests.

    However, if you need to allow rendering of some external content, we still recommend you set up firewall rules which only allow these executables to access hosts you consider to be safe or, at the very least, prevent access to all internal hosts an attacker should not have access to (like metadata services, typically running on 169.254.169.254, or any other sensitive internal services or servers).

    Linux

    On linux, you cannot set up per-process firewall rules, but there are a variety of ways you can prevent PrizmDoc Server from making unintended network requests (user-specific firewall rules, Docker networking rules, and more). How exactly you set this up will depend upon your environment, but we recommend putting some sort of firewall rules in place which prevent PrizmDoc Server from being able to make network requests to hosts an attacker should not have access to.

    PrizmDoc Application Services

    PrizmDoc Application Services Port

    If your solution uses the PrizmDoc Application Services (PAS) API, you will need to expose this port for PAS:

    PAS does not use internal ports.

    HTTPS Protocol Support

    PAS does not accept HTTPS traffic out of the box. In order for your PAS instances to accept HTTPS traffic, you need to set up a reverse proxy in front of your PAS instance or cluster, and use it as an HTTPS terminator. For example, you may set up the reverse proxy to accept incoming HTTPS traffic on port 3000 bound to an external address, and forward that traffic via HTTP to PAS listening on the same port bound to an internal address.

     

     

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