X-Frame-Options
The X-Frame-Options
HTTP response header can be used to indicate whether or not a browser should be allowed to render a page in a <frame>
, <iframe>
, <embed>
or <object>
. Sites can use this to avoid click-jacking attacks, by ensuring that their content is not embedded into other sites.
The added security is provided only if the user accessing the document is using a browser that supports X-Frame-Options
.
Note: The Content-Security-Policy
HTTP header has a frame-ancestors
directive which obsoletes this header for supporting browsers.
Header type | Response header |
---|---|
Forbidden header name | no |
Syntax
There are two possible directives for X-Frame-Options
:
X-Frame-Options: DENY X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
Directives
If you specify DENY
, not only will the browser attempt to load the page in a frame fail when loaded from other sites, attempts to do so will fail when loaded from the same site. On the other hand, if you specify SAMEORIGIN
, you can still use the page in a frame as long as the site including it in a frame is the same as the one serving the page.
DENY
-
The page cannot be displayed in a frame, regardless of the site attempting to do so.
SAMEORIGIN
-
The page can only be displayed in a frame on the same origin as the page itself. The spec leaves it up to browser vendors to decide whether this option applies to the top level, the parent, or the whole chain, although it is argued that the option is not very useful unless all ancestors are also in the same origin (see bug 725490). Also see Browser compatibility for support details.
ALLOW-FROM uri
-
This is an obsolete directive that no longer works in modern browsers. Don't use it. In supporting legacy browsers, a page can be displayed in a frame only on the specified origin uri. Note that in the legacy Firefox implementation this still suffered from the same problem as
SAMEORIGIN
did — it doesn't check the frame ancestors to see if they are in the same origin. TheContent-Security-Policy
HTTP header has aframe-ancestors
directive which you can use instead.
Examples
Note: Setting X-Frame-Options inside the <meta>
element is useless! For instance, <meta http-equiv="X-Frame-Options" content="deny">
has no effect. Do not use it! X-Frame-Options
works only by setting through the HTTP header, as in the examples below.
Configuring Apache
To configure Apache to send the X-Frame-Options
header for all pages, add this to your site's configuration:
Header always set X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN"
To configure Apache to set the X-Frame-Options
DENY, add this to your site's configuration:
Header set X-Frame-Options "DENY"
Configuring Nginx
To configure Nginx to send the X-Frame-Options
header, add this either to your http, server or location configuration:
add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN always;
Configuring IIS
To configure IIS to send the X-Frame-Options
header, add this to your site's Web.config
file:
<system.webServer>
...
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
<add name="X-Frame-Options" value="SAMEORIGIN" />
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
...
</system.webServer>
Or see this Microsoft support article on setting this configuration using the IIS Manager user interface.
Configuring HAProxy
To configure HAProxy to send the X-Frame-Options
header, add this to your front-end, listen, or backend configuration:
rspadd X-Frame-Options:\ SAMEORIGIN
Alternatively, in newer versions:
http-response set-header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN
Configuring Express
To configure Express to send the X-Frame-Options
header, you can use helmet which uses frameguard to set the header. Add this to your server configuration:
const helmet = require('helmet');
const app = express();
app.use(helmet.frameguard({ action: 'SAMEORIGIN' }));
Alternatively, you can use frameguard directly:
const frameguard = require('frameguard')
app.use(frameguard({ action: 'SAMEORIGIN' }))
Specifications
Specification |
---|
HTTP Header Field X-Frame-Options # section-2 |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser