php-vcr is a tool for recording and replaying outgoing requests, however it has had "Privacy aware" marked as "soon" for quite some time now. Whenever I test my APIs, there will often be some sensitive information such as keys or passwords in the recordings. Up until now, I've had a separate script to always remove sensitive data before getting checked into version control.
I got tired of having to always sanitize the data, so this is a quick and dirty solution until php-vcr officially supports "private" recordings.
Install the package through Composer.
composer require --dev allejo/php-vcr-sanitizer
After your VCR instance has been turned on, call VCRCleaner::enable()
and pass whatever URL parameters or headers you don't want to be recorded in your fixtures.
VCR::turnOn();
VCR::insertCassette('...');
VCRCleaner::enable(array(
'request' => array(
'ignoreHostname' => false,
'ignoreQueryFields' => array(
'apiKey',
),
'ignoreHeaders' => array(
'X-Api-Key',
),
'bodyScrubbers' => array(
function($body) {
return preg_replace('/<password.*<\/password>/', 'hunter2', $body);
}
),
'postFieldScrubbers' => array(
function(array $postFields) {
$postFields['Secret'] = 'REDACTED';
return $postFields;
}
),
),
'response' => array(
'ignoreHeaders' => array('*'),
'bodyScrubbers' => array(),
),
));
This library allows your sanitize both the Request and Response sections of your recordings so only non-sensitive data is written to your cassettes. You define the behavior for this sanitizer via an array with configuration options explained below.
request.ignoreHostname
- When set to true, the hostname in URLs inside of the Request will be replaced with[]
in theurl
field and theHost
in the headers will be set to null.request.ignoreQueryFields
- Define which GET parameters in your URL to completely strip out of your recordings.request.ignoreHeaders
- Define the headers in your recording that will automatically be set to null in your recordings. Using an asterisk (i.e.*
) in the array can be used to strip all headers from the request.request.bodyScrubbers
- An array of callbacks that will have the request body available as a string. Each callback must return the modified body. The callbacks are called consecutively in the order they appear in this array and the value from one callback propagates to the next.request.postFieldScrubbers
- An array of callbacks that will have the request post fields available as an array. Each callback must return the modified post fields array. The callbacks are called consecutively in the order they appear in this array and the value from one callback propagates to the next.
The php-vcr library does not officially support modifying its responses so this library uses reflection to modify the contents of responses. While this feature is officially supported by this project, bear with us if this feature were to break due to the php-vcr changing its internals.
response.ignoreHeaders
- The same asrequest.ignoreHeaders
but for your response body instead.response.bodyScrubbers
- The same asrequest.bodyScrubbers
but for your response body instead.
Why is there no VCRCleaner::disable()
? There's no simple and non-hackish way to restore the VCR to its original state. It's probably easier to just configure your VCR differently for a certain batch of unit tests anyways.
When VCR is looking for recordings to playback, VCRCleaner uses modified "matchers" to check everything except for the fields you've marked as sensitive.
If the hostname of the URL endpoint you're hitting is sensitive and shouldn't be recorded, you can have the sanitizer ignore hostnames and they'll be replaced in the url
field with a []
instead and the host
header will be set to null.
-
request:
method: GET
url: 'https://[]/search'
headers:
Host: null
X-Type: application/vcr
response:
status:
http_version: '1.1'
code: '404'
message: 'Not Found'
headers: ~
body: "...response body..."
Let's say you set the X-Api-Key
header to SuperToast
. In your recording, the header you specified will be saved as null.
-
request:
method: GET
url: 'https://www.example.com/search'
headers:
Host: www.example.com
X-Api-Key: null
X-Type: application/vcr
response:
status:
http_version: '1.1'
code: '404'
message: 'Not Found'
headers: ~
body: "...response body..."
Notice how apiKey=yourSecretApiKey
is stripped away in your recording. During your VCR playback, it'll look for matching requests without the apiKey
parameter.
# Your cURL call to: https://www.example.com/search?q=keyword&apiKey=yourSecretApiKey
# gets recorded like so,
-
request:
method: GET
url: 'https://www.example.com/search?q=keyword'
headers:
Host: www.example.com
response:
status:
http_version: '1.1'
code: '404'
message: 'Not Found'
headers: ~
body: "...response body..."
Unlike ignoring headers or URL parameters, scrubbing information from both request and response bodies makes use of an array of callbacks. The result of each function is passed on to the next function.
Notice how password=hunter2
has been stripped away from the request body. The callbacks take the body as a string parameter, the modified result has to be returned.
VCRCleaner::enable(array(
'request' => array(
'bodyScrubbers' => array(
function ($body) {
$parameters = array();
parse_str($body, $parameters);
unset($parameters['password']);
return http_build_query($parameters);
},
),
),
));
# You POST request to `https://www.example.com/search` with a body of
# `username=AzureDiamond&password=hunter2` gets recorded like so,
-
request:
method: POST
url: 'https://www.example.com/search'
headers:
Host: www.example.com
body: 'username=AzureDiamond'
response:
status:
http_version: '1.1'
code: '404'
message: 'Not Found'
headers: ~
body: '...response body...'
When making POST requests, your VCR will sometimes record the data inside of a post_fields
parameter rather than the body
; e.g. when CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS
is used in cURL and you do not set CURLOPT_POST
to true
. In those cases, this option can be used to sanitize sensitive content. Note that unlike the body
field, post_fields
is an array:
VCRCleaner::enable(array(
'request' => array(
'postFieldScrubber' => array(
function (array $postFields) {
$postFields['Secret_Key'] = '';
return $postFields;
},
),
),
));
# You POST request to `https://www.example.com/search` with a post field of
# `['data'=> 'hello world', 'Secret_Key' => 'abc']` gets recorded like so,
-
request:
method: POST
url: 'https://www.example.com/search'
headers:
Host: www.example.com
post_fields:
data: 'hello world'
Secret_Key: ''
response:
status:
http_version: '1.1'
code: '404'
message: 'Not Found'
headers: ~
body: '...response body...'