At this moment, code interpreter executes any code that the user desires based on a prompt, this PR allows to blacklist Python modules from being used in the code.
Without the use of this blacklist, it exposes a high security risk for obvious reasons but here some examples:
A malicious actor (or by mistake) can decide to push sensitive information to outside systems.
By mistake a malicious endpoint can be queried yielding insecure outside connections.
A malicious actor can retrieve basically any information it wants from the internal system, such as internal IPs or network configurations, retrieve internal filesystems or remote execute in other system by lateral attacks (is not always possible but it can happen)
The potential risks are indeed mitigated by using pyodide as it provides an isolated environment running on the browser but they still exist.
The risks become very severe if the setup uses a remote/side-car Jupyter server for executing the code interpreter code. If the developers do not have a medium to high degree of knowledge of network, isolation and UNIX filesystems, the server could be connected to the internal network or be prepared as part of a golden image, and a user, or if an external malicious actor gets access to the app, it could basically take full control of the system or execute lateral movement attacks.
Even though the measures this PR allows are not full proof (the malicious actor could still write its own module as part of the prompt bypassing the use of blacklisted modules), it provides some level of protection.
To be secure, in addition to the measures in this PR, the remote jupyter server should be running in a jailed environment completely disconnected from any network (preferably using a containerised environment) and the permissions on the filesystem should be very restrictive. But these measures are out-of-scope for openwebui, but it could provide a recommendation or a tailored jupyter server image for example that is known to have some of these measures in place.
Below I include some quick examples of the responses with and without the modules restrictions, I am using pyodide for testing but you can extrapolate on the potential risks.
Without:
In pyodide does not work but it would in a remote jupyter server
WIth:
I did test several times that all works but please have a closer look. The modules I blacklisted for this test are: CODE_INTERPRETER_BLACKLISTED_MODULES=os, shutil, pathlib, tempfile, glob, fnmatch, subprocess, multiprocessing, sqlite3, email, http, aiohttp, socket, urllib, ftplib, smtplib, imaplib, poplib, telnetlib, xmlrpc, asyncio, ssl, select, webbrowser, sys, requests, pip, importlib
If accepted I will create the required PR in the documentation for this environment variable.
Pull Request Checklist
Note to first-time contributors: Please open a discussion post in Discussions and describe your changes before submitting a pull request.
Before submitting, make sure you've checked the following:
Target branch: Please verify that the pull request targets the dev branch.
Description: Provide a concise description of the changes made in this pull request.
Changelog: Ensure a changelog entry following the format of Keep a Changelog is added at the bottom of the PR description.
Documentation: Have you updated relevant documentation Open WebUI Docs, or other documentation sources?
Dependencies: Are there any new dependencies? Have you updated the dependency versions in the documentation?
Testing: Have you written and run sufficient tests to validate the changes?
Code review: Have you performed a self-review of your code, addressing any coding standard issues and ensuring adherence to the project's coding standards?
Prefix: To clearly categorize this pull request, prefix the pull request title using one of the following:
BREAKING CHANGE: Significant changes that may affect compatibility
build: Changes that affect the build system or external dependencies
ci: Changes to our continuous integration processes or workflows
chore: Refactor, cleanup, or other non-functional code changes
docs: Documentation update or addition
feat: Introduces a new feature or enhancement to the codebase
fix: Bug fix or error correction
i18n: Internationalization or localization changes
perf: Performance improvement
refactor: Code restructuring for better maintainability, readability, or scalability
style: Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code (white space, formatting, missing semi-colons, etc.)
test: Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests
WIP: Work in progress, a temporary label for incomplete or ongoing work
Changelog Entry
Description
[Concisely describe the changes made in this pull request, including any relevant motivation and impact (e.g., fixing a bug, adding a feature, or improving performance)]
Added
[List any new features, functionalities, or additions]
Changed
[List any changes, updates, refactorings, or optimizations]
Deprecated
[List any deprecated functionality or features that have been removed]
Removed
[List any removed features, files, or functionalities]
Fixed
[List any fixes, corrections, or bug fixes]
Security
[List any new or updated security-related changes, including vulnerability fixes]
Breaking Changes
BREAKING CHANGE: [List any breaking changes affecting compatibility or functionality]
Additional Information
[Insert any additional context, notes, or explanations for the changes]
[Reference any related issues, commits, or other relevant information]
Screenshots or Videos
[Attach any relevant screenshots or videos demonstrating the changes]
Contributor License Agreement
By submitting this pull request, I confirm that I have read and fully agree to the Contributor License Agreement (CLA), and I am providing my contributions under its terms.
🔄 This issue represents a GitHub Pull Request. It cannot be merged through Gitea due to API limitations.
## 📋 Pull Request Information
**Original PR:** https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/pull/14703
**Author:** [@rragundez](https://github.com/rragundez)
**Created:** 6/5/2025
**Status:** ✅ Merged
**Merged:** 8/17/2025
**Merged by:** [@tjbck](https://github.com/tjbck)
**Base:** `dev` ← **Head:** `code-interpreter-blacklist`
---
### 📝 Commits (2)
- [`6dd9691`](https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/commit/6dd969129df247a2feed47bf67a242fe7e9c77bc) Add option to blacklist modules in code interpreter
- [`bb09245`](https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/commit/bb09245792555a50a01f0e35334fd2dc59a4497d) Inject code to block imports from blacklisted modules
### 📊 Changes
**2 files changed** (+31 additions, -0 deletions)
<details>
<summary>View changed files</summary>
📝 `backend/open_webui/config.py` (+10 -0)
📝 `backend/open_webui/utils/middleware.py` (+21 -0)
</details>
### 📄 Description
At this moment, code interpreter executes any code that the user desires based on a prompt, this PR allows to blacklist Python modules from being used in the code.
Without the use of this blacklist, it exposes a high security risk for obvious reasons but here some examples:
- A malicious actor (or by mistake) can decide to push sensitive information to outside systems.
- By mistake a malicious endpoint can be queried yielding insecure outside connections.
- A malicious actor can retrieve basically any information it wants from the internal system, such as internal IPs or network configurations, retrieve internal filesystems or remote execute in other system by lateral attacks (is not always possible but it can happen)
The potential risks are indeed mitigated by using `pyodide` as it provides an isolated environment running on the browser but they still exist.
The risks become very severe if the setup uses a remote/side-car Jupyter server for executing the code interpreter code. If the developers do not have a medium to high degree of knowledge of network, isolation and UNIX filesystems, the server could be connected to the internal network or be prepared as part of a golden image, and a user, or if an external malicious actor gets access to the app, it could basically take full control of the system or execute lateral movement attacks.
Even though the measures this PR allows are not full proof (the malicious actor could still write its own module as part of the prompt bypassing the use of blacklisted modules), it provides some level of protection.
To be secure, in addition to the measures in this PR, the remote jupyter server should be running in a jailed environment completely disconnected from any network (preferably using a containerised environment) and the permissions on the filesystem should be very restrictive. But these measures are out-of-scope for openwebui, but it could provide a recommendation or a tailored jupyter server image for example that is known to have some of these measures in place.
Below I include some quick examples of the responses with and without the modules restrictions, I am using `pyodide` for testing but you can extrapolate on the potential risks.
Without:
In pyodide does not work but it would in a remote jupyter server
WIth:
I did test several times that all works but please have a closer look. The modules I blacklisted for this test are:
`CODE_INTERPRETER_BLACKLISTED_MODULES=os, shutil, pathlib, tempfile, glob, fnmatch, subprocess, multiprocessing, sqlite3, email, http, aiohttp, socket, urllib, ftplib, smtplib, imaplib, poplib, telnetlib, xmlrpc, asyncio, ssl, select, webbrowser, sys, requests, pip, importlib
`
If accepted I will create the required PR in the documentation for this environment variable.
# Pull Request Checklist
### Note to first-time contributors: Please open a discussion post in [Discussions](https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/discussions) and describe your changes before submitting a pull request.
**Before submitting, make sure you've checked the following:**
- [ ] **Target branch:** Please verify that the pull request targets the `dev` branch.
- [ ] **Description:** Provide a concise description of the changes made in this pull request.
- [ ] **Changelog:** Ensure a changelog entry following the format of [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/) is added at the bottom of the PR description.
- [ ] **Documentation:** Have you updated relevant documentation [Open WebUI Docs](https://github.com/open-webui/docs), or other documentation sources?
- [ ] **Dependencies:** Are there any new dependencies? Have you updated the dependency versions in the documentation?
- [ ] **Testing:** Have you written and run sufficient tests to validate the changes?
- [ ] **Code review:** Have you performed a self-review of your code, addressing any coding standard issues and ensuring adherence to the project's coding standards?
- [ ] **Prefix:** To clearly categorize this pull request, prefix the pull request title using one of the following:
- **BREAKING CHANGE**: Significant changes that may affect compatibility
- **build**: Changes that affect the build system or external dependencies
- **ci**: Changes to our continuous integration processes or workflows
- **chore**: Refactor, cleanup, or other non-functional code changes
- **docs**: Documentation update or addition
- **feat**: Introduces a new feature or enhancement to the codebase
- **fix**: Bug fix or error correction
- **i18n**: Internationalization or localization changes
- **perf**: Performance improvement
- **refactor**: Code restructuring for better maintainability, readability, or scalability
- **style**: Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code (white space, formatting, missing semi-colons, etc.)
- **test**: Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests
- **WIP**: Work in progress, a temporary label for incomplete or ongoing work
# Changelog Entry
### Description
- [Concisely describe the changes made in this pull request, including any relevant motivation and impact (e.g., fixing a bug, adding a feature, or improving performance)]
### Added
- [List any new features, functionalities, or additions]
### Changed
- [List any changes, updates, refactorings, or optimizations]
### Deprecated
- [List any deprecated functionality or features that have been removed]
### Removed
- [List any removed features, files, or functionalities]
### Fixed
- [List any fixes, corrections, or bug fixes]
### Security
- [List any new or updated security-related changes, including vulnerability fixes]
### Breaking Changes
- **BREAKING CHANGE**: [List any breaking changes affecting compatibility or functionality]
---
### Additional Information
- [Insert any additional context, notes, or explanations for the changes]
- [Reference any related issues, commits, or other relevant information]
### Screenshots or Videos
- [Attach any relevant screenshots or videos demonstrating the changes]
### Contributor License Agreement
By submitting this pull request, I confirm that I have read and fully agree to the [Contributor License Agreement (CLA)](/CONTRIBUTOR_LICENSE_AGREEMENT), and I am providing my contributions under its terms.
---
<sub>🔄 This issue represents a GitHub Pull Request. It cannot be merged through Gitea due to API limitations.</sub>
Blocking a user prevents them from interacting with repositories, such as opening or commenting on pull requests or issues. Learn more about blocking a user.
📋 Pull Request Information
Original PR: https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/pull/14703
Author: @rragundez
Created: 6/5/2025
Status: ✅ Merged
Merged: 8/17/2025
Merged by: @tjbck
Base:
dev← Head:code-interpreter-blacklist📝 Commits (2)
6dd9691Add option to blacklist modules in code interpreterbb09245Inject code to block imports from blacklisted modules📊 Changes
2 files changed (+31 additions, -0 deletions)
View changed files
📝
backend/open_webui/config.py(+10 -0)📝
backend/open_webui/utils/middleware.py(+21 -0)📄 Description
At this moment, code interpreter executes any code that the user desires based on a prompt, this PR allows to blacklist Python modules from being used in the code.
Without the use of this blacklist, it exposes a high security risk for obvious reasons but here some examples:
The potential risks are indeed mitigated by using
pyodideas it provides an isolated environment running on the browser but they still exist.The risks become very severe if the setup uses a remote/side-car Jupyter server for executing the code interpreter code. If the developers do not have a medium to high degree of knowledge of network, isolation and UNIX filesystems, the server could be connected to the internal network or be prepared as part of a golden image, and a user, or if an external malicious actor gets access to the app, it could basically take full control of the system or execute lateral movement attacks.
Even though the measures this PR allows are not full proof (the malicious actor could still write its own module as part of the prompt bypassing the use of blacklisted modules), it provides some level of protection.
To be secure, in addition to the measures in this PR, the remote jupyter server should be running in a jailed environment completely disconnected from any network (preferably using a containerised environment) and the permissions on the filesystem should be very restrictive. But these measures are out-of-scope for openwebui, but it could provide a recommendation or a tailored jupyter server image for example that is known to have some of these measures in place.
Below I include some quick examples of the responses with and without the modules restrictions, I am using
pyodidefor testing but you can extrapolate on the potential risks.Without:
In pyodide does not work but it would in a remote jupyter server
WIth:
I did test several times that all works but please have a closer look. The modules I blacklisted for this test are:
CODE_INTERPRETER_BLACKLISTED_MODULES=os, shutil, pathlib, tempfile, glob, fnmatch, subprocess, multiprocessing, sqlite3, email, http, aiohttp, socket, urllib, ftplib, smtplib, imaplib, poplib, telnetlib, xmlrpc, asyncio, ssl, select, webbrowser, sys, requests, pip, importlibIf accepted I will create the required PR in the documentation for this environment variable.
Pull Request Checklist
Note to first-time contributors: Please open a discussion post in Discussions and describe your changes before submitting a pull request.
Before submitting, make sure you've checked the following:
devbranch.Changelog Entry
Description
Added
Changed
Deprecated
Removed
Fixed
Security
Breaking Changes
Additional Information
Screenshots or Videos
Contributor License Agreement
By submitting this pull request, I confirm that I have read and fully agree to the Contributor License Agreement (CLA), and I am providing my contributions under its terms.
🔄 This issue represents a GitHub Pull Request. It cannot be merged through Gitea due to API limitations.