[ljackman]

The whitelisting looks great. Even with the remaining concerns I raised in the other comment, the ability to whitelist only allowed domains for network connections is a massive step up security-wise, even if they are allowed for the entire program (until revoked globally).

[hn_throwaway_99]

I'm not an expert on this in any sense, but would it be possible to add this into Node at the OS level, e.g. make use of network namespaces to restrict outbound network access?

[thegagne]

Yeah, the OS or network firewall can do this, but security happens in layers, and to me it makes sense that an app config is the place to put a whitelist for the apps network needs.

If I was just spitballing an ideal scenario, I’d suggest that each module would define what it needs, and then some sort of central file would be built to hold the aggregate of them (urls / modules), for easy scanning.

The reason I’d rather have it in the app is if you are switching platforms, you don’t need to worry about firewall configs being exactly the same, or being fine grained. Also you might be whitelisting up ranges on the network level, then locking it down further on the app level.