Crate rocket_cors

• Documentation: master branch | stable

Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) for Rocket applications

Requirements

• Nightly Rust
• Rocket >= 0.4

If you are using Rocket 0.3, use the 0.3.0 version of this crate.

Nightly Rust

Rocket requires nightly Rust. You should probably install Rust with rustup, then override the code directory to use nightly instead of stable. See installation instructions.

In particular, rocket_cors is currently targetted for the latest nightly. Older nightlies might work, but they are subject to the minimum that Rocket sets.

Installation

Add the following to Cargo.toml:

rocket_cors = "0.4.0-rc.1"

To use the latest master branch, for example:

rocket_cors = { git = "https://github.com/lawliet89/rocket_cors", branch = "master" }

Features

By default, a serialization feature is enabled in this crate that allows you to (de)serialize the Cors struct that is described below. If you would like to disable this, simply change your Cargo.toml to:

rocket_cors = { version = "0.4.0-rc.1", default-features = false }

Usage

Before you can add CORS responses to your application, you need to create a Cors struct that will hold the settings.

Each of the examples can be run off the repository via cargo run --example xxx where xxx is

• fairing
• guard
• manual

Cors Struct

The Cors struct contains the settings for CORS requests to be validated and for responses to be generated. Defaults are defined for every field in the struct, and are documented on the Cors struct page. You can also deserialize the struct from some format like JSON, YAML or TOML when the default serialization feature is enabled.

Three modes of operation

You can add CORS to your routes via one of three ways, in descending order of ease and in ascending order of flexibility.

• Fairing (should only used exclusively)
• Request Guard
• Truly Manual

Unfortunately, you cannot mix and match Fairing with any other of the methods, due to the limitation of Rocket’s fairing API. That is, the checks for Fairing will always happen first, and if they fail, the route is never executed and so your guard or manual checks will never get executed.

You can, however, mix and match guards and manual checks.

In summary:

	Fairing	Request Guard	Manual
Must apply to all routes	✔	✗	✗
Different settings for different routes	✗	✗	✔
May define custom OPTIONS routes	✗	✔	✔

Fairing

Fairing is the easiest to use and also the most inflexible. You don’t have to define OPTIONS routes for your application, and the checks are done transparently.

However, you can only have one set of settings that must apply to all routes. You cannot opt any route out of CORS checks.

To use this, simply create a Cors struct and then attach it to Rocket.

#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)]
extern crate rocket;
extern crate rocket_cors;

use rocket::{get, routes};
use rocket::http::Method;
use rocket_cors::{AllowedOrigins, AllowedHeaders};

#[get("/")]
fn cors<'a>() -> &'a str {
    "Hello CORS"
}

fn main() {
    let (allowed_origins, failed_origins) = AllowedOrigins::some(&["https://www.acme.com"]);
    assert!(failed_origins.is_empty());

    // You can also deserialize this
    let options = rocket_cors::Cors {
        allowed_origins: allowed_origins,
        allowed_methods: vec![Method::Get].into_iter().map(From::from).collect(),
        allowed_headers: AllowedHeaders::some(&["Authorization", "Accept"]),
        allow_credentials: true,
        ..Default::default()
    };

    rocket::ignite()
        .mount("/", routes![cors])
        .attach(options)
        .launch();
}

Injected Route

The fairing implementation will inject a route during attachment to Rocket. This route is used to handle errors during CORS validation.

This is due to the limitation in Rocket’s Fairing lifecycle. Ideally, we want to validate the CORS request during on_request, and if the validation fails, we want to stop the route from even executing to

1. prevent side effects
2. prevent resource usage from unnecessary computation

The only way to do this is to hijack the request and route it to our own injected route to handle errors. Rocket does not allow Fairings to stop the processing of a route.

You can configure the behaviour of the injected route through a couple of fields in the Cors struct.

Request Guard

Using request guard requires you to sacrifice the convenience of Fairings for being able to opt some routes out of CORS checks and enforcement. BUT you are still restricted to only one set of CORS settings and you have to mount additional routes to catch and process OPTIONS requests. The OPTIONS routes are used for CORS preflight checks.

You will have to do the following:

• Create a Cors struct and during Rocket’s ignite, add the struct to Rocket’s managed state.
• For all the routes that you want to enforce CORS on, you can mount either some catch all route or define your own route for the OPTIONS verb.
• Then in all the routes you want to enforce CORS on, add a Request Guard for the Guard struct in the route arguments. You should not wrap this in an Option or Result because the guard will let non-CORS requests through and will take over error handling in case of errors.
• In your routes, to add CORS headers to your responses, use the appropriate functions on the Guard for a Response or a Responder.

#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)]
extern crate rocket;
extern crate rocket_cors;

use std::io::Cursor;

use rocket::{Response, get, options, routes};
use rocket::http::Method;
use rocket_cors::{Guard, AllowedOrigins, AllowedHeaders, Responder};

/// Using a `Responder` -- the usual way you would use this
#[get("/")]
fn responder(cors: Guard) -> Responder<&str> {
    cors.responder("Hello CORS!")
}

/// Using a `Response` instead of a `Responder`. You generally won't have to do this.
#[get("/response")]
fn response(cors: Guard) -> Response {
    let mut response = Response::new();
    response.set_sized_body(Cursor::new("Hello CORS!"));
    cors.response(response)
}

/// Manually mount an OPTIONS route for your own handling
#[options("/manual")]
fn manual_options(cors: Guard) -> Responder<&str> {
    cors.responder("Manual OPTIONS preflight handling")
}

/// Manually mount an OPTIONS route for your own handling
#[get("/manual")]
fn manual(cors: Guard) -> Responder<&str> {
    cors.responder("Manual OPTIONS preflight handling")
}

fn main() {
    let (allowed_origins, failed_origins) = AllowedOrigins::some(&["https://www.acme.com"]);
    assert!(failed_origins.is_empty());

    // You can also deserialize this
    let options = rocket_cors::Cors {
        allowed_origins: allowed_origins,
        allowed_methods: vec![Method::Get].into_iter().map(From::from).collect(),
        allowed_headers: AllowedHeaders::some(&["Authorization", "Accept"]),
        allow_credentials: true,
        ..Default::default()
    };

    rocket::ignite()
        .mount(
            "/",
            routes![responder, response],
        )
        // Mount the routes to catch all the OPTIONS pre-flight requests
        .mount("/", rocket_cors::catch_all_options_routes())
        // You can also manually mount an OPTIONS route that will be used instead
        .mount("/", routes![manual, manual_options])
        .manage(options)
        .launch();
}

Truly Manual

This mode is the most difficult to use but offers the most amount of flexibility. You might have to understand how the library works internally to know how to use this mode. In exchange, you can selectively choose which routes to offer CORS protection to, and you can mix and match CORS settings for the routes. You can combine usage of this mode with “guard” to offer a mix of ease of use and flexibility.

You really do not need to use this unless you have a truly ad-hoc need to respond to CORS differently in a route. For example, you have a ping endpoint that allows all origins but the rest of your routes do not.

Handler

This mode requires that you pass in a closure that will be lazily evaluated once a CORS request has been validated. If validation fails, the closure will not be run. You should put any code that has any side effects or with an appreciable computation cost inside this handler.

Steps to perform:

• You will first need to have a Cors struct ready. This struct can be borrowed with a lifetime at least as long as 'r which is the lifetime of a Rocket request. 'static works too. In this case, you might as well use the Guard method above and place the Cors struct in Rocket’s state. Alternatively, you can create a Cors struct directly in the route.
• Your routes might need to have a 'r lifetime and return impl Responder<'r>. See below.
• Using the Cors struct, use either the respond_owned or respond_borrowed function and pass in a handler that will be executed once CORS validation is successful.
• Your handler will be passed a Guard which you will have to use to add CORS headers into your own response.
• You will have to manually define your own OPTIONS routes.

Notes about route lifetime

You might have to specify a 'r lifetime in your routes and then return impl Responder<'r>. If you are not sure what to do, you can try to leave the lifetime out and then add it in when the compiler complains.

Generally, you will need to manually annotate the lifetime for the following cases where the compiler is unable to elide the lifetime:

• Your function arguments do not borrow anything.
• Your function arguments borrow from more than one lifetime.
• Your function arguments borrow from a lifetime that is shorter than the 'r lifetime required.

You can see examples when the lifetime annotation is required (or not) in examples/manual.rs.

Owned example

This is the most likely scenario when you want to have manual CORS validation. You can use this when the settings you want to use for a route is not the same as the rest of the application (which you might have put in Rocket’s state).

#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)]
extern crate rocket;
extern crate rocket_cors;

use rocket::{get, options, routes};
use rocket::http::Method;
use rocket::response::Responder;
use rocket_cors::{Cors, AllowedOrigins, AllowedHeaders};

/// Create and use an ad-hoc Cors
#[get("/owned")]
fn owned<'r>() -> impl Responder<'r> {
    let options = cors_options();
    options.respond_owned(|guard| guard.responder("Hello CORS"))
}

/// You need to define an OPTIONS route for preflight checks.
/// These routes can just return the unit type `()`
#[options("/owned")]
fn owned_options<'r>() -> impl Responder<'r> {
    let options = cors_options();
    options.respond_owned(|guard| guard.responder(()))
}

fn cors_options() -> Cors {
    let (allowed_origins, failed_origins) = AllowedOrigins::some(&["https://www.acme.com"]);
    assert!(failed_origins.is_empty());

    // You can also deserialize this
    rocket_cors::Cors {
        allowed_origins: allowed_origins,
        allowed_methods: vec![Method::Get].into_iter().map(From::from).collect(),
        allowed_headers: AllowedHeaders::some(&["Authorization", "Accept"]),
        allow_credentials: true,
        ..Default::default()
    }
}

fn main() {
    rocket::ignite()
        .mount(
            "/",
            routes![
                owned,
                owned_options,
            ],
        )
        .manage(cors_options())
        .launch();
}

Borrowed Example

You might want to borrow the Cors struct from Rocket’s state, for example. Unless you have special handling, you might want to use the Guard method instead which has less hassle.

#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)]
extern crate rocket;
extern crate rocket_cors;

use std::io::Cursor;

use rocket::{State, Response, get, routes};
use rocket::http::Method;
use rocket::response::Responder;
use rocket_cors::{Cors, AllowedOrigins, AllowedHeaders};

/// Using a borrowed Cors
#[get("/")]
fn borrowed(options: State<Cors>) -> impl Responder {
    options.inner().respond_borrowed(
        |guard| guard.responder("Hello CORS"),
    )
}

/// Using a `Response` instead of a `Responder`. You generally won't have to do this.
#[get("/response")]
fn response(options: State<Cors>) -> impl Responder {
    let mut response = Response::new();
    response.set_sized_body(Cursor::new("Hello CORS!"));

    options.inner().respond_borrowed(
        move |guard| guard.response(response),
    )
}

fn cors_options() -> Cors {
    let (allowed_origins, failed_origins) = AllowedOrigins::some(&["https://www.acme.com"]);
    assert!(failed_origins.is_empty());

    // You can also deserialize this
    rocket_cors::Cors {
        allowed_origins: allowed_origins,
        allowed_methods: vec![Method::Get].into_iter().map(From::from).collect(),
        allowed_headers: AllowedHeaders::some(&["Authorization", "Accept"]),
        allow_credentials: true,
        ..Default::default()
    }
}

fn main() {
    rocket::ignite()
        .mount(
            "/",
            routes![
                borrowed,
                response,
            ],
        )
        .mount("/", rocket_cors::catch_all_options_routes()) // mount the catch all routes
        .manage(cors_options())
        .launch();
}

Mixing Guard and Manual

You can mix Guard and Truly Manual modes together for your application. For example, your application might restrict the Origins that can access it, except for one ping route that allows all access.

You can run the example code below with cargo run --example mix.

#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)]
extern crate rocket;
extern crate rocket_cors;

use rocket::{get, options, routes};
use rocket::http::Method;
use rocket::response::Responder;
use rocket_cors::{Cors, Guard, AllowedOrigins, AllowedHeaders};

/// The "usual" app route
#[get("/")]
fn app(cors: Guard) -> rocket_cors::Responder<&str> {
    cors.responder("Hello CORS!")
}

/// The special "ping" route
#[get("/ping")]
fn ping<'r>() -> impl Responder<'r> {
    let options = cors_options_all();
    options.respond_owned(|guard| guard.responder("Pong!"))
}

/// You need to define an OPTIONS route for preflight checks if you want to use `Cors` struct
/// that is not in Rocket's managed state.
/// These routes can just return the unit type `()`
#[options("/ping")]
fn ping_options<'r>() -> impl Responder<'r> {
    let options = cors_options_all();
    options.respond_owned(|guard| guard.responder(()))
}

/// Returns the "application wide" Cors struct
fn cors_options() -> Cors {
    let (allowed_origins, failed_origins) = AllowedOrigins::some(&["https://www.acme.com"]);
    assert!(failed_origins.is_empty());

    // You can also deserialize this
    rocket_cors::Cors {
        allowed_origins: allowed_origins,
        allowed_methods: vec![Method::Get].into_iter().map(From::from).collect(),
        allowed_headers: AllowedHeaders::some(&["Authorization", "Accept"]),
        allow_credentials: true,
        ..Default::default()
    }
}

/// A special struct that allows all origins
///
/// Note: In your real application, you might want to use something like `lazy_static` to
/// generate a `&'static` reference to this instead of creating a new struct on every request.
fn cors_options_all() -> Cors {
    // You can also deserialize this
    rocket_cors::Cors {
        allowed_methods: vec![Method::Get].into_iter().map(From::from).collect(),
        ..Default::default()
    }
}

fn main() {
    rocket::ignite()
        .mount(
            "/",
            routes![
                app,
                ping,
                ping_options,
            ],
        )
        .mount("/", rocket_cors::catch_all_options_routes()) // mount the catch all routes
        .manage(cors_options())
        .launch();
}

Reference

• Fetch CORS Specification
• Supplanted W3C CORS Specification
• Resource Advice

Modules

headers

CORS specific Request Headers

Structs

Cors

Response generator and Fairing for CORS

Guard

A request guard to check CORS headers before a route is run. Will not execute the route if checks fail.

ManualResponder

A Manual Responder used in the “truly manual” mode of operation.

Method

A wrapper type around rocket::http::Method to support serialization and deserialization

Responder

A Responder which will simply wraps another Responder with CORS headers.

Enums

AllOrSome

An enum signifying that some of type T is allowed, or All (everything is allowed).

Error

Errors during operations

Functions

catch_all_options_routes

Returns “catch all” OPTIONS routes that you can mount to catch all OPTIONS request. Only works if you have put a Cors struct into Rocket’s managed state.

Type Definitions

AllowedHeaders

A list of allowed headers

AllowedMethods

A list of allowed methods

AllowedOrigins

A list of allowed origins. Either Some origins are allowed, or all origins are allowed.