santifer/career-ops · error · Error

arbeitnow: untrusted hostname "${parsed.hostname}" — must be

Error message

arbeitnow: untrusted hostname "${parsed.hostname}" — must be ${TRUSTED_HOST}

What it means

The hostname-allowlist step of arbeitnow's SSRF guard. After scheme validation, the provider requires `parsed.hostname === 'www.arbeitnow.com'` exactly. Any other host — even a look-alike — is rejected so a server-side or config-level redirect cannot exfiltrate requests to an attacker-controlled domain.

Source

Thrown at providers/arbeitnow.mjs:34

// Wire in via a `job_boards:` entry with `provider: arbeitnow`.

const FEED_BASE = 'https://www.arbeitnow.com/api/job-board-api';
const TRUSTED_HOST = 'www.arbeitnow.com';
const PER_PAGE = 100;
const DEFAULT_MAX_PAGES = 3;
const MAX_PAGES_CAP = 50;

/** @param {string} url */
function assertArbeitnowUrl(url) {
  let parsed;
  try {
    parsed = new URL(url);
  } catch {
    throw new Error(`arbeitnow: invalid URL: ${url}`);
  }
  if (parsed.protocol !== 'https:') throw new Error(`arbeitnow: URL must use HTTPS: ${url}`);
  if (parsed.hostname !== TRUSTED_HOST) {
    throw new Error(`arbeitnow: untrusted hostname "${parsed.hostname}" — must be ${TRUSTED_HOST}`);
  }
  return url;
}

/** Resolve the page cap: a positive integer `max_pages` on the entry, capped. */
function resolveMaxPages(entry) {
  const v = entry?.max_pages;
  if (Number.isInteger(v) && v > 0) return Math.min(v, MAX_PAGES_CAP);
  return DEFAULT_MAX_PAGES;
}

/**
 * Normalize a single Arbeitnow job. Exported for unit tests.
 *
 * Field mapping → the normalized Job shape:
 *   - title:    `title`, trimmed (items without one are dropped).
 *   - url:      `url` — an absolute `https:` posting URL host-locked to
 *               www.arbeitnow.com (an off-host or non-https URL is untrusted and

View on GitHub (pinned to 9b17a8ac97)

Solutions

Keep `TRUSTED_HOST` as `www.arbeitnow.com` and use only the canonical API endpoint.
If a genuinely new host must be allowed, add it explicitly to a trusted set rather than loosening the check to a suffix.
Audit the URL for trailing-host tricks (e.g. `www.arbeitnow.com.attacker.tld`) that pass naive `endsWith` checks.

Example fix

// before (rejected — wrong host)
const FEED_BASE = 'https://api.arbeitnow.com/api/job-board-api';

// after
const FEED_BASE = 'https://www.arbeitnow.com/api/job-board-api';

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const TRUSTED_HOST = 'www.arbeitnow.com';
function assertTrustedHost(u) {
  const p = new URL(u);
  if (p.hostname !== TRUSTED_HOST) {
    throw new Error(`untrusted host ${p.hostname}; expected ${TRUSTED_HOST}`);
  }
}
assertTrustedHost(FEED_BASE);

Prevention

Never loosen the host check to a suffix/contains test — that admits spoofed hosts.
If a new host must be trusted, add it to an explicit allowlist set and document why.
Audit config for URLs that bypass the constant FEED_BASE.

When it happens

Trigger: `parsed.hostname` is anything other than `www.arbeitnow.com`: a subdomain (`api.arbeitnow.com`), an apex (`arbeitnow.com`), a spoofed host (`www.arbeitnow.com.evil.tld`), or an entirely different domain.

Common situations: Pointing the provider at a mirror, staging, or proxy host; a typo in `FEED_BASE`; or an attempt to reuse the provider for a different job board that happens to share the API shape.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of santifer/career-ops@9b17a8ac97 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7f27540777bf4ef6. Report an issue: GitHub.