audit: external connection #1966

demesm · 2024-03-26T01:48:24Z

demesm
Mar 26, 2024

What is the purpose of this connection to a remote ip?

Darin755 · 2024-03-26T02:34:29Z

Darin755
Mar 26, 2024

This is fairly concerning. This project has the potential to allow people to actually have privacy while using AI but some of the design choices do not seem to focus on privacy.

0 replies

tjbck · 2024-03-26T03:48:39Z

tjbck
Mar 26, 2024
Maintainer

Related #807, To reiterate, WebUI does not make any external connections in operation and everything stays on your machine. Don't trust our word for it; We encourage you to examine/audit our code, and make a PR in case we missed anything. We would not have open-sourced the project if we wanted to be shady about the data collection policy.

We would also love to know what part of the code is making this connection, if I had to make an educated guess based on the precedented issue reports, it seems like one of our dependency libraries upstream is making the connection. Feel free to continue your investigation and keep us updated!

0 replies

lainedfles · 2024-03-26T10:06:57Z

lainedfles
Mar 26, 2024

I've intended to communicate my experience in this regard eventually and this ticket is a good opportunity. To date, I've almost exclusively used the Docker container with Podman (self-built and official download). I think I've adequately identified the source of all external network connections I've encountered, which all appear to be entirely legitimate. I've also not yet found anything suspicious in the source code of this project or dependencies (granted I've not performed a full audit 😀 but my first pull request was quickly implemented to disable Chroma telemetry #618).

Note that the Dockerfile explicitly attempts to preload models for Whisper and Chroma embedding (via sentence_transformers) during the build process. In my experience, the containers function entirely offline with a startup delay (this is a topic for another discussion and IMHO a ticket is warranted). You can now use the GLOBAL_LOG_LEVEL="DEBUG" environment variable to get a deeper glimpse.

Here are my notes:

Connections

huggingface.co: sentence_transformer (RAG)

Connection initiated here:

Mar 26 01:30:58 hostname open-webui[305428]: INFO:sentence_transformers.SentenceTransformer:Load pretrained SentenceTransformer: all-MiniLM-L6-v2
Mar 26 01:30:58 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:Starting new HTTPS connection (1): huggingface.co:443

There seems to be a problem with SENTENCE_TRANSFORMERS_HOME=/app/backend/data/cache/embedding/models somewhere that appears to result in execution of hf_hub_download() at this point

Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/modules.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/config_sentence_transformers.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/README.md HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/modules.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/sentence_bert_config.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/config.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/tokenizer_config.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:01 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "GET /api/models/sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/revision/main HTTP/1.1" 200 18778

raw.githubusercontent.com: litellm

It seems that litellm make a compulsory connection to download this file. Use of LITELLM_LOCAL_MODEL_COST_MAP may be a reasonable mitigation. Testing should be easy enough.

Mar 26 01:30:57 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://raw.githubusercontent.com:443 "GET /BerriAI/litellm/main/model_prices_and_context_window.json HTTP/1.1" 200 5064

api.github.com: Open-WebUI update check

Mar 26 01:35:19 hostname open-webui[305428]: INFO:     10.0.2.100:56500 - "GET /ollama/api/version HTTP/1.1" 200 OK
Mar 26 01:35:19 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:Starting new HTTPS connection (1): api.github.com:443
Mar 26 01:35:19 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://api.github.com:443 "GET /repos/open-webui/open-webui/releases/latest HTTP/1.1" 200 1070
Mar 26 01:35:19 hostname open-webui[305428]: INFO:     10.0.2.100:56500 - "GET /api/version/updates HTTP/1.1" 200 OK

Gravatar is also incorporated but I've yet to encounter any related traffic perhaps due to my choice of invalid email addresses that I use with my Open-WebUI accounts.

Of course connections to OpenAI and anywhere else like MistralAI will occur if desired and configured appropriately.

0 replies

lainedfles · 2024-03-26T10:18:41Z

lainedfles
Mar 26, 2024

What is the purpose of this connection to a remote ip?

This IP resolves to a CloudFront Philadelphia address:

$ host 18.238.4.28
28.4.238.18.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer server-18-238-4-28.phl51.r.cloudfront.net.

I'd wager that this is a Huggingface endoint.

$ whois 18.238.4.28

ARIN WHOIS data

#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at: https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/tou/
#
# If you see inaccuracies in the results, please report at
# https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/inaccuracy_reporting/
#
# Copyright 1997-2024, American Registry for Internet Numbers, Ltd.
#



# start

NetRange:       18.32.0.0 - 18.255.255.255
CIDR:           18.128.0.0/9, 18.64.0.0/10, 18.32.0.0/11
NetName:        AT-88-Z
NetHandle:      NET-18-32-0-0-1
Parent:         NET18 (NET-18-0-0-0-0)
NetType:        Direct Allocation
OriginAS:       
Organization:   Amazon Technologies Inc. (AT-88-Z)
RegDate:        2019-10-07
Updated:        2021-02-10
Ref:            https://rdap.arin.net/registry/ip/18.32.0.0



OrgName:        Amazon Technologies Inc.
OrgId:          AT-88-Z
Address:        410 Terry Ave N.
City:           Seattle
StateProv:      WA
PostalCode:     98109
Country:        US
RegDate:        2011-12-08
Updated:        2024-01-24
Comment:        All abuse reports MUST include:
Comment:        * src IP
Comment:        * dest IP (your IP)
Comment:        * dest port
Comment:        * Accurate date/timestamp and timezone of activity
Comment:        * Intensity/frequency (short log extracts)
Comment:        * Your contact details (phone and email) Without these we will be unable to identify the correct owner of the IP address at that point in time.
Ref:            https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/AT-88-Z


OrgRoutingHandle: IPROU3-ARIN
OrgRoutingName:   IP Routing
OrgRoutingPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgRoutingEmail:  aws-routing-poc@amazon.com
OrgRoutingRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/IPROU3-ARIN

OrgNOCHandle: AANO1-ARIN
OrgNOCName:   Amazon AWS Network Operations
OrgNOCPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgNOCEmail:  amzn-noc-contact@amazon.com
OrgNOCRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/AANO1-ARIN

OrgTechHandle: ANO24-ARIN
OrgTechName:   Amazon EC2 Network Operations
OrgTechPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgTechEmail:  amzn-noc-contact@amazon.com
OrgTechRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/ANO24-ARIN

OrgAbuseHandle: AEA8-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Amazon EC2 Abuse
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgAbuseEmail:  abuse@amazonaws.com
OrgAbuseRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/AEA8-ARIN

OrgRoutingHandle: ARMP-ARIN
OrgRoutingName:   AWS RPKI Management POC
OrgRoutingPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgRoutingEmail:  aws-rpki-routing-poc@amazon.com
OrgRoutingRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/ARMP-ARIN

# end


# start

NetRange:       18.238.0.0 - 18.239.255.255
CIDR:           18.238.0.0/15
NetName:        AMAZON-CF
NetHandle:      NET-18-238-0-0-1
Parent:         AT-88-Z (NET-18-32-0-0-1)
NetType:        Reallocated
OriginAS:       
Organization:   Amazon.com, Inc. (AMAZON-4)
RegDate:        2022-01-21
Updated:        2022-01-21
Ref:            https://rdap.arin.net/registry/ip/18.238.0.0



OrgName:        Amazon.com, Inc.
OrgId:          AMAZON-4
Address:        1918 8th Ave
City:           SEATTLE
StateProv:      WA
PostalCode:     98101-1244
Country:        US
RegDate:        1995-01-23
Updated:        2022-09-30
Ref:            https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/AMAZON-4


OrgTechHandle: ANO24-ARIN
OrgTechName:   Amazon EC2 Network Operations
OrgTechPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgTechEmail:  amzn-noc-contact@amazon.com
OrgTechRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/ANO24-ARIN

OrgRoutingHandle: IPROU3-ARIN
OrgRoutingName:   IP Routing
OrgRoutingPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgRoutingEmail:  aws-routing-poc@amazon.com
OrgRoutingRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/IPROU3-ARIN

OrgRoutingHandle: ARMP-ARIN
OrgRoutingName:   AWS RPKI Management POC
OrgRoutingPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgRoutingEmail:  aws-rpki-routing-poc@amazon.com
OrgRoutingRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/ARMP-ARIN

OrgAbuseHandle: AEA8-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Amazon EC2 Abuse
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgAbuseEmail:  abuse@amazonaws.com
OrgAbuseRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/AEA8-ARIN

OrgNOCHandle: AANO1-ARIN
OrgNOCName:   Amazon AWS Network Operations
OrgNOCPhone:  +1-206-555-0000 
OrgNOCEmail:  amzn-noc-contact@amazon.com
OrgNOCRef:    https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/AANO1-ARIN

# end



#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at: https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/tou/
#
# If you see inaccuracies in the results, please report at
# https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/inaccuracy_reporting/
#
# Copyright 1997-2024, American Registry for Internet Numbers, Ltd.
#

0 replies

Darin755 · 2024-03-26T17:51:07Z

Darin755
Mar 26, 2024

Maybe you could add a environment variable that explicitly tells it to connect to the internet? This could be added to the getting started command and those who do not want third party services for privacy reasons could simply remove the variables.

My initial comment was probably way to harsh but I have noticed that some projects simply do not focus on privacy or ethical issues. That does not make them malicious but is usually a byproduct of the developers not caring about privacy.

0 replies

justinh-rahb · 2024-03-26T17:53:23Z

justinh-rahb
Mar 26, 2024
Collaborator

Thanks @lainedfles for the thorough analysis! The part you noted here probably should be looked into @tjbck:

There seems to be a problem with SENTENCE_TRANSFORMERS_HOME=/app/backend/data/cache/embedding/models somehwere that appears to result in in execution of hf_hub_download() at this point

Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/modules.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/config_sentence_transformers.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/README.md HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/modules.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/sentence_bert_config.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/config.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:00 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "HEAD /sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/resolve/main/tokenizer_config.json HTTP/1.1" 200 0
Mar 26 01:31:01 hostname open-webui[305428]: DEBUG:urllib3.connectionpool:https://huggingface.co:443 "GET /api/models/sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/revision/main HTTP/1.1" 200 18778

And yes, Gravatar shouldn't be fetched unless you want it to be used by setting so in your profile settings.

Gravatar is also incorporated but I've yet to encounter any related traffic perhaps due to my choice of invalid email addresses that I use with my Open-WebUI accounts.

0 replies

justinh-rahb · 2024-03-26T17:55:25Z

justinh-rahb
Mar 26, 2024
Collaborator

My initial comment was probably way to harsh but I have noticed that some projects simply do not focus on privacy or ethical issues. That does not make them malicious but is usually a byproduct of the developers not caring about privacy.

We've a documented history of taking these matters seriously, but we also rely on others to find and report this stuff. Thank you to everyone for keeping an eye on things. We do try to find this stuff early, but sometimes things get snuck in after they were originally merged.

0 replies

lainedfles · 2024-04-05T06:59:09Z

lainedfles
Apr 5, 2024

I've confirmed that --env LITELLM_LOCAL_MODEL_COST_MAP="True" successfully eliminates the LiteLLM startup connection. When used along with #1419, there are no connections on startup except for your configured LLM models (in my case localhost for Ollama). The Open-WebUI update check still must be manually triggered via the Settings -> About page. Offline startup is MUCH faster!

0 replies

Darin755 · 2024-04-05T19:16:00Z

Darin755
Apr 5, 2024

I've confirmed that --env LITELLM_LOCAL_MODEL_COST_MAP="True" successfully eliminates the LiteLLM startup connection. When used along with #1419, there are no connections on startup except for your configured LLM models (in my case localhost for Ollama). The Open-WebUI update check still must be manually triggered via the Settings -> About page. Offline startup is MUCH faster!

It might be worth making this the default

0 replies

justinh-rahb · 2024-04-05T19:21:48Z

justinh-rahb
Apr 5, 2024
Collaborator

I've confirmed that --env LITELLM_LOCAL_MODEL_COST_MAP="True" successfully eliminates the LiteLLM startup connection. When used along with #1419, there are no connections on startup except for your configured LLM models (in my case localhost for Ollama). The Open-WebUI update check still must be manually triggered via the Settings -> About page. Offline startup is MUCH faster!

Nice one @lainedfles !

0 replies

lainedfles · 2024-04-05T22:38:46Z

lainedfles
Apr 5, 2024

It might be worth making this the default

@Darin755 I agree! PR created: #1436

Nice one @lainedfles !

@justinh-rahb Thanks, I'm having a lot of fun with this project, it's fast becoming a new hobby! Thank you for all your knowledge and support.

0 replies

lainedfles · 2024-04-11T02:42:13Z

lainedfles
Apr 11, 2024

Found another HuggingFace connection to download the WhisperModel. See #1499

0 replies

anrgct · 2024-05-14T15:51:37Z

anrgct
May 14, 2024

I can't connect to Hugging Face. Every time I start Open WebUI, it takes a long time. When I open the proxy, the startup time shortens.

0 replies

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audit: external connection #1966

Replies: 13 comments

tjbck Mar 26, 2024 Maintainer

Connections

justinh-rahb Mar 26, 2024 Collaborator

justinh-rahb Mar 26, 2024 Collaborator

justinh-rahb Apr 5, 2024 Collaborator

tjbck
Mar 26, 2024
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justinh-rahb
Mar 26, 2024
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justinh-rahb
Mar 26, 2024
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justinh-rahb
Apr 5, 2024
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