---
title: "Important: #94484 - Introduce HTML Sanitizer"
manual: "TYPO3 Core Changelog"
version: "main"
permalink: "https://docs.typo3.org/permalink/changelog:important-94484"
source: "Changelog/9.5.x/Important-94484-IntroduceHTMLSanitizer.rst"
modified: "2026-09-14T09:47:36+00:00"
---

# Important: #94484 - Introduce HTML Sanitizer

See [forge#94484](https://forge.typo3.org/issues/94484)

## Description

To sanitize and purge XSS from markup during frontend rendering, new
custom HTML sanitizer has been introduced, based on `masterminds/html5`.
Both `\TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Builder\CommonBuilder` and
`\TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Visitor\CommonVisitor` provide common configuration
which is in line with expected tags that are allowed in backend RTE.

Using a custom builder instance, it is possible to adjust for individual
demands - however, configuration possibilities cannot be modified using
TypoScript - basically since the existing syntax does not cover all
necessary scenarios.

## PHP API

The API is considered "internal", however it might be necessary to provide
custom markup handling, add additional tags, attributes or values. The whole
process of sanitization is based on an "allow-list" - everything that is not
allowed, is automatically denied.

The following example is meant to give a brief overview of the behavior and
corresponding possibilities.

```php
<?php
use TYPO3\CMS\Core\Html\DefaultSanitizerBuilder;
use TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Behavior;
use TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Builder\BuilderInterface;

class MyCustomBuilder extends DefaultSanitizerBuilder implements BuilderInterface
{
    public function createBehavior(): Behavior
    {
        // extends existing behavior, adds new tag
        return parent::createBehavior()
            ->withName('my-custom')
            ->withTags(
                (new Behavior\Tag('my-element', Behavior\Tag::ALLOW_CHILDREN))
                ->addAttrs(
                    (new Behavior\Attr('href'))->addValues(
                        new Behavior\RegExpAttrValue('#^(?:https?://|mailto:)#')
                    ),
                    ...$this->globalAttrs
                )
            );
    }
}
```

As a result a new tag `my-element` is which is allowed to

-   have any safe global attribute (`id`, `class`, `data-*`, ...)
-   have attribute `href`, in case corresponding value either starting with `http://`,
    `http://` or `mailto:` \- evaluated from the given regular expression

## TypoScript

### stdWrap.htmlSanitize

New `stdWrap` property `htmlSanitize` has been introduced
to control sanitization of markup, removing tags, attributes or values that have
not been allowed explicitly.

-   `htmlSanitize = [boolean]` whether to invoke sanitization (enabled per default).
-   `htmlSanitize.build = [string]` defines which specific builder (must be an
    instance of `\TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Builder\BuilderInterface`)
    to be used for building a `\TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Sanitizer`
    instance using a particular `\TYPO3\HtmlSanitizer\Behavior`.
    This can either be a fully qualified class name or the name of a preset as
    defined in `$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['htmlSanitizer']` \- per
    default, `\TYPO3\CMS\Core\Html\DefaultSanitizerBuilder` is used.

```typoscript
10 = TEXT
10 {
  value = <div><img src="invalid.file" onerror="alert(1)"></div>
  htmlSanitize = 1
  // htmlSanitize.build = default
  // htmlSanitize.build = TYPO3\CMS\Core\Html\DefaultSanitizerBuilder
}
```

### stdWrap.parseFunc

`stdWrap.htmlSanitize` is enabled per default when
`stdWrap.parseFunc` is invoked. This also includes Fluid
view-helper `<f:format.html>`, since it invokes `parseFunc`
using `lib.parseFunc_RTE` directly.

The following example shows how sanitization behavior - enabled per default -
can be disabled. This is not recommended, but occasionally might be necessary.

```typoscript
// either disable globally
lib.parseFunc.htmlSanitize = 0
lib.parseFunc_RTE.htmlSanitize = 0

// or disable individually per use-case
10 = TEXT
10 {
  value = <div><img src="invalid.file" onerror="alert(1)"></div>
  parseFunc =< lib.parseFunc_RTE
  parseFunc.htmlSanitize = 0
}
```

### Troubleshooting

Since any invocation of `stdWrap.parseFunc` triggers HTML
sanitization per default - except it is disabled explicitly - the following
example lead to lots of generated markup being sanitized - and was solved by
explicitly disabling it using `htmlSanitize = 0`.

```typoscript
10 = FLUIDTEMPLATE
10 {
  templateRootPaths {
    // ...
  }
  variables {
    // ...
  }
  stdWrap.parseFunc {
    // replace --- with soft-hyphen
    short.--- = &shy;
    // sanitization of ALL MARKUP is NOT DESIRED here
    htmlSanitize = 0
  }
}
```

HTML sanitization should be used for user-submitted input like rich-text
data - but not for the overall markup of a complete website.

## Backend RTE configuration

Processing instructions for rich-text fields in the backend user interface
can be adjusted in a similar way, e.g. in `Configuration/Processing.yaml`.

```yaml
processing:
  allowTags:
    # ...
  HTMLparser_db:
    # ...
    htmlSanitize:
      # use default builder as configured in
      # $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['htmlSanitizer']
      build: default

    # disable individually per use-case
    # htmlSanitize: false
```

Sanitization for persisting data can be needs to be enabled globally using corresponding
feature flag `$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['features']['security.backend.htmlSanitizeRte']`.

## Debugging & Logging

In order to debug and log occurrences that have been modified during the sanitization
process, following configuration can be configured in corresponding `LOG` section
of `typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php`.

```php
// ...
'LOG' => [
    'TYPO3' => [
        'HtmlSanitizer' => [
            'writerConfiguration' => [
                \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Log\LogLevel::DEBUG => [
                    'TYPO3\CMS\Core\Log\Writer\FileWriter' => [
                        'logFileInfix' => 'html',
                    ],
                ],
            ],
        ],
    ],
],
// ...
```

Which produces log entries in e.g. `typo3temp/var/log/typo3_html_[hash-value].log` like below

```text
Wed, 11 Aug 2021 09:03:08 +0200 [DEBUG] request="b62c11bcbd3d7"
  component="TYPO3.HtmlSanitizer.Visitor.CommonVisitor":
  Found invalid attribute a.href - {"behavior":"default","nodeName":"a","attrName":"href"}
Wed, 11 Aug 2021 09:03:08 +0200 [DEBUG] request="b62c11bcbd3d7"
  component="TYPO3.HtmlSanitizer.Visitor.CommonVisitor":
  Found invalid attribute div.onmouseover - {"behavior":"default","nodeName":"div","attrName":"onmouseover"}
Wed, 11 Aug 2021 09:03:08 +0200 [DEBUG] request="b62c11bcbd3d7"
  component="TYPO3.HtmlSanitizer.Visitor.CommonVisitor":
  Found unexpected tag script - {"behavior":"default","nodeName":"script"}
```