Ochrona is a free solution for securing the dependencies used in Python projects. Ochrona also includes support for policies which give you additional control over what aspects of your dependency usage you'd like to be alerted on.
The Ochrona maintainers care deeply about Developer Experience (DX), if you have any feedback or run into issues please open an issue here.
Ochrona maintains its own database of vulnerabilities impacting Python packages. You're welcome to check out the database here. This database is updated frequently using data from NVD, Github, and other sources. Ochrona will update its local copy of the database if a new version exists.
*requirements*.txtPipfile.lockpoetry.locksetup.py*constraints*.txtenvironment.ymltox.ini
pip install ochrona
pipenv install --dev ochrona
poetry add -D ochrona
| Arg | Description | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
--dir |
Directory to recursively search for dependencies files to scan [.] | path | /User/me/my_project |
--exclude_dir |
Directory names that should be excluded from recursive search. Comma separated | str | build,dev |
--file |
Single dependency file to scan | file | /User/me/my_project/requirements.txt |
--debug |
Enable debug logging [False] | bool | True |
--silent |
Silent mode [False] | bool | True |
--report_type |
The report type that's desired [BASIC] | str | XML |
--output |
Location for report output | path | /User/me/my_project/logs |
--exit |
Exit with Code 0 regardless of vulnerability findings. [False] | bool | True |
--ignore |
Ignore a CVE or package | str | requests |
--include_dev |
Include develop dependencies from Pipfile.lock [False] | bool | True |
--sbom |
Must be provided, along with --output to generate an SBOM [False] |
bool | True |
--sbom_format |
Whether the generated SBOM should be a JSON or XML file. [JSON] | str | JSON |
| Variable Name | Corresponding Arg |
|---|---|
| OCHRONA_DEBUG_LOGGING | --debug |
| OCHRONA_IGNORED_VULNS | --ignore |
There is an empty .ochrona.yml file included in the repo.
| Key | Description | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
dir |
Directory to recursively search for dependencies files to scan [.] | path | /User/me/my_project |
exclude_dir |
Directory names that should be excluded from recursive search. | list | build |
file |
Single dependency file to scan | file | /User/me/my_project/requirements.txt |
debug |
Enable debug logging [false] | bool | true |
silent |
Silent mode [false] | bool | true |
report_type |
The report type that's desired [BASIC] | str | XML |
report_location |
Location for report output [.] | path | /User/me/my_project/logs |
exit |
Exit with Code 0 regardless of vulnerability findings [false] | bool | true |
ignore |
Ignore a CVE or package name | str | requests |
include_dev |
Include develop dependencies from files that support dev/required dependencies [false] | bool | true |
color_output |
Whether or not std out text should use color. Note: this is enabled by default when running in a non-Windows environment [true] | bool | false |
policies |
Policies are a way of defining additional checks against your dependencies. See here for more details | array | details |
sbom |
SBOM will only be generated if this argument is supplied. report_location also must be specified to generate an SBOM. See here for more details about SBOMs [false] |
bool | false |
sbom_format |
Whether the generated SBOM should be a JSON or XML file. [JSON] | str | JSON |
Example:
# debug: true
# silent: false
# dir: .
# report_type: JSON
# report_location: .
# ignore: requests
# include_dev: false
# color_output: false
# policies:
# - license_type NIN APSL,GPL-PA,JSON
# sbom: true
# sbom_format: JSON
Policies are a way to add additional check to your Python dependency usage. Policies can be defined using conditional and logical syntax. These generic policy definitions allow you to define unique, custom policies to fit your need, and they can be extensible as new fields and capabilities are added.
Policy vioations are not the same as vulnerabilities, however violations will cause Ochrona to emit a failure exit code and the output will include details about the policy violation.
At their most basic, policies are defined using conditional statements and logical operators. A conditional statement is structured as <field><operator><value>, for example, license_type == MIT. Whitespace is always ignored during policy evaluation.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
name |
The name of a package. |
license_type |
An SPDX license type for a package. |
latest_version |
The most recent version of a package. |
latest_update |
The timestamp for when a package was last updated. ISO-8601 Format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM-SS.ffffffZ |
release_count |
The number of releases a package has on Pypi. |
| Operator | Description |
|---|---|
== |
An equals operator for comparing exact string matches. |
!= |
A NOT equals operators for non-matching strings. |
< |
Less than, for comparing numerical or string values. |
<= |
Less than or equal to. |
> |
Greater than, for comparing numerical or string values. |
>= |
Greater than or equal to. |
IN |
For checking whether a value exists within a set. |
NIN |
For checking that a value does not exist within a set. |
| Operator | Description |
|---|---|
AND |
For checking that all conditions are true. |
OR |
For checking that at least one condition is true. |
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
NOW-N |
Shorthand for an ISO 8601 formatted date in the past. N will be an integer number of days. |
# Policy to check that a license type is in my aproved list
license_type IN MIT,ISC,Apache-2.0
# Policy to check that all packages have been updated this year
latest_update >= NOW-365
Legacy policies can also be defined using their name and one or more conditions which are evaluated at scan time. Legacy policies will be removed in a future release and you are encouraged to use generic policies for all new policies.
For example, the license_type policy allows you to be alerted if one of your dependency's open-source license is not part of your "Allow List" or if it uses a license from your "Deny List".
| Name | Description | Fields |
|---|---|---|
package_name |
Allows for checking whether the dependencies used are all from an allow_list or contain any values from a deny_list. You may define allow_list or deny_list, but not both. Field values should be defined as a comma-separated string. |
allow_list, deny_list |
license_type |
Allows for checking whether the licenses of dependencies used are all from an allow_list or contain any values from a deny_list. You may define allow_list or deny_list, but not both. Field values should be defined as a comma-separated string. SPDX license ids should be used. |
allow_list, deny_list |
Software Bill-of-Materials (SBOM) are a list of the components used to build a piece of software. They aim to make the delivery and composition of software components more transparent. These documents can be useful for understanding software supply chains and ensuring license complaince.
Ochrona has opted to support (CycloneDX)[https://cyclonedx.org/] as our SBOM standard of choice. CycloneDX is a lightweight software bill of materials (SBOM) standard designed for use in application security contexts and supply chain component analysis. CycloneDX is developed and support by (OWASP)[https://owasp.org/www-project-cyclonedx/].
$ ochrona
This will search for any supported dependency files recursively from the run location. It will output rules in the BASIC
format to stdout. The program will exit with an error exit code if any confirmed vulnerabilities are found.
$ ochrona --exit --report_type XML --output ./output
In this mode ochrona acts as a safe wrapper around standard pip installs to ensure that a package and it's dependencies are safe before installing. This action preemptively checks a package and only imports if no vulnerabilities are found. It can be used with a base package (i.e. requests), or with a package pinned to an exact version (i.e. requests==2.21.0). It also supports importing a requirements.txt style, the pip equivalent of pip install -r <file>.
$ ochrona --install <package_name>|<requirements.txt>
Ochrona supports supplying dependencies via stdin and can accept a PEP-508 complaint (i.e. requirements.txt) formated string, or a single dependency. Single dependencies can be supplied as the first argument or piped.
$ ochrona urllib3==1.26.4
$ echo "urllib3==1.26.4" | ochrona
$ pip freeze | ochrona
$ pipenv lock -r | ochrona
$ cat requirements.txt | ochrona
Ochrona can be run via Docker. This is useful for the paranoid who may worry that an installed module could have modified the Python package namespace and allow malicious packages to bypass Ochrona's security checks. We've added this support in response to CVE-2020-5252 which was disclosed prior to Ochrona and affects several other similar tools.
$ pip freeze | docker run -i --rm ochrona/ochrona ochrona
$ pip freeze | docker run -i -e OCHRONA_IGNORED_VULNS=requests --rm ochrona/ochrona ochrona
Ochrona supports several built in output options include a BASIC and FULL plaintext reports, as well as a Junit style XML report or a JSON style report for incorporating with other tools.
Let the world know you're keeping your project safe with Ochrona. Add our shield to your README.md by adding the following line.
[](https://ochrona.dev)