Vite config loadEnv exposing all envs to frontend.

[pumanitro]

Describe the bug

This line of code:
const clientEnv = loadEnv(mode, process.cwd(), '');

for vite.config.ts file (entire vite configuration) was the place that caused our CI/CD envs to be exposed to the world.

Of course, some bots that scrape the internet read compiled bundle, got our keys, and used them to cause a massacre.

Yes, we *** up using chatgpt generated config and doing code review.

Still, it should not be so easy to do it and I feel more people could be affected by that.

It is also hard to find it during the code review because these are 2 sings that can cost you and your company a lot of money.

IMO it should show some error at least somewhere, or take a value like 'YES_I_WANT_TO_EXPOSE_ALL_OF_MY_ENVS_TO_THE_WORLD_AND_BOTS'.

Reproduction

https://stackblitz.com/edit/vitejs-vite-e6fzdp?file=vite.config.ts&terminal=dev

Steps to reproduce

No response

System Info

Windows 10,
Chrome 124.0.6367.202
Packages:
    "vite": "~5.0.0",
    "vite-plugin-env-compatible": "^2.0.1",
    "vitest": "^1.3.1",

Used Package Manager

npm

Logs

No response

Validations

• Follow our Code of Conduct
• Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.
• Make sure this is a Vite issue and not a framework-specific issue. For example, if it's a Vue SFC related bug, it should likely be reported to vuejs/core instead.
• Check that this is a concrete bug. For Q&A open a GitHub Discussion or join our Discord Chat Server.
• The provided reproduction is a minimal reproducible example of the bug.

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• vitejs-vite-e6fzdp (Open reproduction)

[afriestad]

https://vitejs.dev/guide/api-javascript.html#loadenv

Hey there, @pumanitro! Here you've manually turned off the guardrails by sending in an empty string as prefix. This is intended and well documented behaviour. I recommend checking the documentation for the functions you call, especially if a plagiarism engine recommends a function you haven't used before.

[pumanitro]

https://vitejs.dev/guide/api-javascript.html#loadenv

Hey there, @pumanitro! Here you've manually turned off the guardrails by sending in an empty string as prefix. This is intended and well documented behaviour. I recommend checking the documentation for the functions you call, especially if a plagiarism engine recommends a function you haven't used before.

I totally understand it, still I am proposing this to not be so easy to be done. Especially if this can cost companies lives. Empty string is hard to be noticed in comparison to regexp like this: 'YES_I_WANT_TO_EXPOSE_ALL_OF_MY_ENVS_TO_THE_WORLD_AND_BOTS'.
What is more, I got a feeling more and more people will be hacked because of it. Don't we want to protect humans that make mistakes by being it more explicit?

[bluwy]

I don't think there's an issue with loadEnv() either. The problem here isn't loadEnv() but how you use the result of loadEnv(), which in this case is:

    define: {
      'process.env': clientEnv,
    },

loadEnv() is only a utility to load env vars, and it shouldn't warn with the assumption that you're exposing the secret env vars.

In Vite, we do issue an error if you set envPrefix: '' because that directly controls the values of import.meta.env.*. But in the case for define, you're free to replace any value with something else.

[SvizelPritula]

Note that the documentation (kind of) suggests you do this. When explaining how to use loadEnv to access values from .env files, it demonstrates that by feeding everything into define: https://vitejs.dev/config/
Edit: I'm blind, it just extract one value. It's therefore okay.

[pumanitro]

Note that the documentation (kind of) suggests you do this. When explaining how to use loadEnv to access values from .env files, it demonstrates that by feeding everything into define: https://vitejs.dev/config/

Screanshoting till they remove it :)

[lyesh]

loadEnv(mode, process.cwd(), '') (the effective value in the submission) is very different from loadEnv(mode, process.cwd(), '').APP_ENV (the effective value in the documentation). It's like the difference between "rm -rf /opt/" and "rm -rf / opt/" . Just one character makes the difference between removing all of the third-party apps on the system and deleting everything that it can find. As in most professions, you need to know what you are doing to use your tools properly and effectively.