qz-lna

JS browser library for trying to determine whether a connection failed due to denied Local Network Access permissions.

Example

import {detectLna, LnaError} from "qz-lna";

try {
	await detectLna("http://127.0.0.1:8000", fetch)
} catch (e) {
	if (e instanceof LnaError && e.denied) {
		// Teach the user a lesson about clicking "no" on popups
	} else {
		// Failed for another or for an unknown reason, display error message
		throw e;
	}
}

Limitations

• Browser implementations vary and are changing rapidly. While we make our best effort to reflect the current state of the web platform, there may always be inaccuracies. Using the latest version of this library may be essential to ensure future functionality.
• Public domain names in origin or target address are not resolved, but assumed to be in public. If you have a domain example.com that resolves to a local IP address, you should override this behavior using options.defaultAddressSpace or options.override.
• Browser settings or policies (such as Chrome's LocalNetworkAccessAllowedForUrls) may change whether permissions are required for a given request, with no way for the library to know about it.
• We can't detect when a permission prompt is dismissed (such as by pressing Esc) rather than explicitly allowed or denied.

Installation

We provide three compiled variants of the library:

• dist/lna.bundle[.min].js: IIFE bundle for direct use in browsers, transpiled with bundled dependencies and polyfills for older browsers. API is available as global variable lna.
• dist/lna.mjs: ECMAScript module for use with bundlers.
• dist/lna.cjs: CommonJS module for use with bundlers.

To use:

• If you're using a bundler for your project, you can install the package from npm:

  npm install qz-lna

• If you're using a browser environment without a bundler, you can include the script directly from a CDN, e.g.

  <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/qz-lna@0.1/dist/lna.bundle.min.js"></script>

  The library will be available as global variable lna.

• Alternatively, you can build the library from source:

  yarn install
  yarn build

API

The API consists of a single function detectLna:

declare async function detectLna<R>(
	url: string | URL,
	callback: (url: string | URL) => R,
	options?: LnaOptions
): R

This calls and awaits callback with the given url. If the callback throws an error that indicates connection failure, detectLna throws an LnaError instance with the following properties:

• denied: boolean | undefined indicates whether permission for this request was denied, or undefined if unknown
• permission: PermissionStatus | null | undefined the applicable permission query result. null if no permission is required, undefined if unknown

If the target or origin address space is known to the caller, it's recommended that the (inherently inaccurate) automatic detection be bypassed using the options parameter:

type LnaOptions = {
	override?: {
		targetAddressSpace?: AddressSpace,
		originAddressSpace?: AddressSpace,
	},
	defaultAddressSpace?: AddressSpace, // Address space to assume for public domains
	isWebSocket?: boolean,
	isConnectionError?: (error: unknown) => boolean,
}

where AddressSpace is one of "local", "loopback" or "public".

You can also globally configure by modifying the exported defaultOptions.