Matrix Content Scanner

Note: This project is now deprecated in favour of https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-content-scanner-python, which new deployments should use instead.

A Web service for scanning media hosted on a Matrix content repository.

Introduction

MCS allows for arbitrary scanning of content hosted on Matrix. When a Matrix client requests media from a Matrix content repository, it may be necessary to run antivirus software or other checks on the file. MCS provides mechanisms for:

• Downloading clean media
• Retrieving scan results without downloading media

Downloading media follows these steps:

1. The Matrix client requests media from MCS.
2. If the media has not previously been scanned, the MCS requests media from the Matrix media repository, downloads it and scans it with the configured script.
3. If safe, the scanned media is returned to the client, otherwise the error code 403 is returned.

Retrieving scan results follows the same steps but exposes a different API, as explained in the API section.

Dependencies

Olm

MCS requires the Olm library to handle encrypted_body requests. The version of Olm required is >3.2.3 and exposes the PkEncryption class. See https://git.matrix.org/git/olm/.

Configuration

See the default configuration for details.

Running

MCS runs on node.js as an express.js HTTP server exposed on the configured port.

git clone git@github.com:matrix-org/matrix-content-scanner.git

cd matrix-content-scanner

# Copy default configuration
cp config/default.config.yaml config/matrix-content-scanner-config.yaml

# Edit new configuration
vi config/matrix-content-scanner-config.yaml

npm install

npm run start -- config/matrix-content-scanner-config.yaml

# OR

node src/index.js config/matrix-content-scanner-config.yaml

API

NB: All requests have the prefix /_matrix/media_proxy/unstable/.

Error response body fields:

• info: The error message.

GET .../download/:domain/:mediaId

GET .../thumbnail/:domain/:mediaId?width=100&height=100&method=scale

Retrieve an unencrypted file from the media repo and if it hasn't been scanned since MCS started running, scan it. If the file is clean, respond with the file.

For thumbnails, all query parameters are optional.

Example Responses

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
... file body

or

HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
...
{
  "info": "Client error: File not clean. Output: ..."
}

---

GET .../scan/:domain/:mediaId

Retrieve an unencrypted file from the media repo and if it hasn't been scanned since MCS started running, scan it. Response is the result of the last scan.

Example Responses

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...
{
  "clean": false,
  "info": "File not clean. Output: '...'"
}

or

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...
{
  "clean": true,
  "info": "File clean at 6/7/2018, 6:02:40 PM"
}

Response body fields:

• clean: If true, the script ran with an exit code of 0. Otherwise it ran with a non-zero exit code.
• info: Human-readable information about the result.

---

POST .../download_encrypted

POST .../scan_encrypted

These are the same as .../download and .../scan but take input from the POST body.

Example Request

POST .../download_encrypted HTTP/1.1
...
{
    "file": {
        "v": "v2",
        "iv": "...",
        "hashes": {
            "sha256": "...",
        },
        "key": {
            "alg": "A256CTR",
            "kty": "oct",
            "k": "...",
        },
        "url": "mxc://..."
    }
}

Request body fields:

• file: The data under the file, thumbnail_file fields or root of the content of a Matrix file event.
• file.url: The MXC URL of the file to fetch from the HS.
• file.key, file.iv, file.hashes and file.key: encryption data required to decrypt the media once downloaded.

Encrypted POST API

The request body of any POST request can be encrypted using the public key exposed by .../public_key. This can be done by using the PkEncryption class from of the Olm library.

POST .../download_encrypted HTTP/1.1
...
{
  "encrypted_body": {
    "ciphertext": "hpcyBpyBIGJ...bmNvZGVkIHN0cmluZw==",
    "mac": "cyBpcyBhbm9...YmFzZT9kZWQgc3RyaW5n",
    "ephemeral": "aSBhbSbFhsj...BhIHN0cmluZw=="
  }
}

Request body fields:

• encrypted_body.ciphertext: The base64-encoded string representing encrypted JSON of the original request body.
• encrypted_body.mac: The base64-encoded string representing the MAC.
• encrypted_body.ephemeral: The base64-encoded string representing the ephemeral public key.

403 { ..., reason: 'MCS_BAD_DECRYPTION' }

This response indicates that the client should request the public key of the server again and retry the request a single time.

GET .../public_key

Returns the current public curve25519 key of server. This can be used to encrypt encrypted_body requests.

Example Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...
{
  "public_key": "[base64-encoded curve25519 public key of the server]"
}

Error Codes

Client errors are exposed as JSON responses with HTTP error codes that are not 200. An error response might look like this:

HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
...
{
  "info": "***VIRUS DETECTED***",
  "reason": "MCS_MEDIA_NOT_CLEAN"
}

Documented Error Codes

Status Code	Reason	Description
502	MCS_MEDIA_REQUEST_FAILED	The server failed to request media from the media repo.
400	MCS_MEDIA_FAILED_TO_DECRYPT	The server failed to decrypt the encrypted media downloaded from the media repo.
403	MCS_MEDIA_NOT_CLEAN	The server scanned the downloaded media but the antivirus script returned a non-zero exit code.
403	MCS_BAD_DECRYPTION	The provided encrypted_body could not be decrypted. The client should request the public key of the server and then retry (once).
400	MCS_MALFORMED_JSON	The request body contains malformed JSON.
500	-	The server experienced an unexpected error.