fix(web-tabs): bound time-to-headers, not the whole proxied exchange (#237, #238)

Reported by @DodgyBadger.

#237: the proxy wrapped each upstream fetch in a 30s `AbortSignal.timeout`, which
bounded the ENTIRE exchange rather than the wait for response headers. A dashboard
endpoint doing model inference, and any actively streaming response, both died at
30s as a generic 502 that Codeman never logged, so it read as an intermittent
network error. The timeout now bounds time-to-headers only and is cleared the
moment headers arrive, so a slow endpoint and a long stream both survive. The
default moves to 300s because "the app is thinking" is normal for the dashboards
people proxy; abandoned upstreams are reclaimed by the client-hangup abort rather
than by this value.

A browser that navigates away mid-request now aborts the upstream fetch, guarded
by `writableFinished` for the same reason as `abortOnClientHangUp` in
session-routes: `close` also fires after a completed response and must not abort
anything. Header timeouts are logged as a warning with a sanitized identity
(method plus origin plus path, never the query string, which can carry the
dashboard's tokens), and a client hangup is deliberately not warned since nobody
is listening and it would read as the dashboard being broken.

The WebSocket handshake keeps its own 30s budget
(`CODEMAN_WEBVIEW_WS_HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS`), decoupled from the request timeout:
a handshake is connection establishment, and waiting minutes on one only delays
the browser's reconnect logic.

#238: the web-tab guide covered sandboxed dashboards having no cookies, but not
cookie authentication in front of Codeman itself (Cloudflare Access and similar),
where a sandboxed frame's asset and API requests carry no auth cookie, bounce to
the login provider, and leave the embedded app looking unstyled or broken while
trusted mode works. Documented, and the Test button's result now says it probes
server-to-upstream reachability only, not how the page behaves in a sandboxed
frame.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Codeman maintainer
2026-08-09 04:06:23 +02:00
parent 94aa53c65b
commit 6e89eb9ec1
6 changed files with 252 additions and 8 deletions
+25 -1
View File
@@ -46,7 +46,11 @@ Codeman, including a phone that is not on the tailnet.
`direct` mode (a plain cross-origin iframe) still exists and is cheaper, but it only
works for an HTTPS dashboard that permits framing. The **Test** button probes from
the server and tells you which mode applies.
the server and tells you which mode applies. Note what Test actually verifies:
**server-to-upstream reachability, nothing else**. It does not exercise the browser
sandbox, cookies, CORS, CSP, or any reverse proxy sitting in front of Codeman, so a
passing Test does not guarantee the embedded page will render (see the
cookie-authenticated reverse proxy caveat below).
## The sandbox, and when to turn it off
@@ -66,6 +70,17 @@ Even in trusted mode, Codeman never forwards its own credentials upstream: the
`Authorization` header and the `codeman_session` cookie are stripped on the way out,
so `CODEMAN_PASSWORD` cannot leak into a dashboard.
⚠️ **Sandboxed tabs may not work when Codeman itself is behind a
cookie-authenticated reverse proxy** (Cloudflare Access, Authelia, oauth2-proxy and
similar). The sandboxed frame is opaque-origin, so its stylesheet, script, and API
requests do not carry the proxy's authentication cookie; the proxy redirects them to
the login provider, where CORS/CSP kills them, and the embedded app renders
unstyled or broken while the Codeman page around it works fine. Trusted mode
(**Open sandboxed** off) keeps a real origin and the cookie, so it works. The
**Test** button cannot catch this: it checks that the Codeman *server* can reach the
upstream, not that a sandboxed *browser* frame can load assets through the public
authentication layer.
## How the proxy authenticates
A sandboxed iframe is opaque-origin, so every request it makes is cross-site: the
@@ -137,6 +152,15 @@ then every API call fails, which looks like the dashboard being broken.
- **Login-protected dashboards need trusted mode**, since a sandboxed frame has no
cookie jar. A server-side per-dashboard cookie jar would lift this and is the
natural next step if it becomes annoying.
- **Cookie-authenticated reverse proxies in front of Codeman break sandboxed tabs**
(#238). The sandboxed frame's requests carry no auth cookie, so the proxy bounces
them to its login provider and the app loads broken while Test reports reachable.
Use trusted mode behind Cloudflare Access and friends; see the warning above.
- **Slow endpoints and the upstream timeout** (#237). The proxy waits
`CODEMAN_WEBVIEW_TIMEOUT_MS` (default 300s) for the upstream's response *headers*,
then streams the body without any time bound; a header timeout is logged
server-side and answered as a 502 that names the limit. WebSocket handshakes use
the separate `CODEMAN_WEBVIEW_WS_HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS` (default 30s).
- **Not a security boundary.** The proxy reaches whatever the Codeman server can
reach. That is not an escalation for someone who already commands
`--dangerously-skip-permissions` agents, but in multi-user mode it does mean a