🔒️(back) remove pagination and limit to 5 for user list endpoint

The user list endpoint does not use anymore a pagination, the results is
directly return in a list and the max results returned is limited to 5.
In order to modify this limit the settings API_USERS_LIST_LIMIT is
used.

Author: lunika

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ and this project adheres to
 - 🐛(back) allow only images to be used with the cors-proxy #781
 - 🐛(backend) stop returning inactive users on the list endpoint #636
 - 🔒️(backend) require at least 5 characters to search for users #636
+- 🔒️(back) throttle user list endpoint #636
+- 🔒️(back) remove pagination and limit to 5 for user list endpoint #636
 
 
 ## [2.5.0] - 2025-03-18

src/backend/core/api/viewsets.py

@@ -143,6 +143,7 @@ class UserViewSet(
     permission_classes = [permissions.IsSelf]
     queryset = models.User.objects.filter(is_active=True)
     serializer_class = serializers.UserSerializer
+    pagination_class = None
 
     def get_queryset(self):
         """
@@ -157,10 +158,10 @@ def get_queryset(self):
             return queryset
 
         # Exclude all users already in the given document
-        if document_id := self.request.GET.get("document_id", ""):
+        if document_id := self.request.query_params.get("document_id", ""):
             queryset = queryset.exclude(documentaccess__document_id=document_id)
 
-        if not (query := self.request.GET.get("q", "")) or len(query) < 5:
+        if not (query := self.request.query_params.get("q", "")) or len(query) < 5:
             return queryset.none()
 
         # For emails, match emails by Levenstein distance to prevent typing errors
@@ -170,7 +171,7 @@ def get_queryset(self):
                     distance=RawSQL("levenshtein(email::text, %s::text)", (query,))
                 )
                 .filter(distance__lte=3)
-                .order_by("distance", "email")
+                .order_by("distance", "email")[: settings.API_USERS_LIST_LIMIT]
             )
 
         # Use trigram similarity for non-email-like queries
@@ -180,7 +181,7 @@ def get_queryset(self):
             queryset.filter(email__trigram_word_similar=query)
             .annotate(similarity=TrigramSimilarity("email", query))
             .filter(similarity__gt=0.2)
-            .order_by("-similarity", "email")
+            .order_by("-similarity", "email")[: settings.API_USERS_LIST_LIMIT]
         )
 
     @drf.decorators.action(

src/backend/core/tests/test_api_users.py

@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ def test_api_users_list_authenticated():
     )
     assert response.status_code == 200
     content = response.json()
-    assert content["results"] == []
+    assert content == []
 
 
 def test_api_users_list_query_email():
@@ -58,24 +58,54 @@ def test_api_users_list_query_email():
         "/api/v1.0/users/[email protected]",
     )
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == [str(dave.id)]
 
     response = client.get(
         "/api/v1.0/users/[email protected]",
     )
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == [str(dave.id)]
 
     response = client.get(
         "/api/v1.0/users/[email protected]",
     )
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == []
 
 
+def test_api_users_list_limit(settings):
+    """
+    Authenticated users should be able to list users and the number of results
+    should be limited to 10.
+    """
+    user = factories.UserFactory()
+
+    client = APIClient()
+    client.force_login(user)
+
+    # Use a base name with a length equal 5 to test that the limit is applied
+    base_name = "alice"
+    for i in range(15):
+        factories.UserFactory(email=f"{base_name}.{i}@example.com")
+
+    response = client.get(
+        "/api/v1.0/users/?q=alice",
+    )
+    assert response.status_code == 200
+    assert len(response.json()) == 5
+
+    # if the limit is changed, all users should be returned
+    settings.API_USERS_LIST_LIMIT = 100
+    response = client.get(
+        "/api/v1.0/users/?q=alice",
+    )
+    assert response.status_code == 200
+    assert len(response.json()) == 15
+
+
 def test_api_users_list_query_email_matching():
     """While filtering by email, results should be filtered and sorted by Levenstein distance."""
     user = factories.UserFactory()
@@ -94,13 +124,13 @@ def test_api_users_list_query_email_matching():
         "/api/v1.0/users/[email protected]",
     )
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == [str(user1.id), str(user2.id), str(user3.id), str(user4.id)]
 
     response = client.get("/api/v1.0/users/[email protected]")
 
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == [str(user4.id), str(user2.id), str(user1.id), str(user5.id)]
 
 
@@ -126,7 +156,7 @@ def test_api_users_list_query_email_exclude_doc_user():
     )
 
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == [str(nicole_fool.id)]
 
 
@@ -143,15 +173,15 @@ def test_api_users_list_query_short_queries():
 
     response = client.get("/api/v1.0/users/?q=jo")
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    assert response.json()["results"] == []
+    assert response.json() == []
 
     response = client.get("/api/v1.0/users/?q=john")
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    assert response.json()["results"] == []
+    assert response.json() == []
 
     response = client.get("/api/v1.0/users/?q=john.")
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    assert len(response.json()["results"]) == 2
+    assert len(response.json()) == 2
 
 
 def test_api_users_list_query_inactive():
@@ -166,7 +196,7 @@ def test_api_users_list_query_inactive():
     response = client.get("/api/v1.0/users/?q=john.")
 
     assert response.status_code == 200
-    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()["results"]]
+    user_ids = [user["id"] for user in response.json()]
     assert user_ids == [str(lennon.id)]
 
 

src/backend/impress/settings.py

@@ -604,6 +604,12 @@ class Base(Configuration):
         },
     }
 
+    API_USERS_LIST_LIMIT = values.PositiveIntegerValue(
+        default=5,
+        environ_name="API_USERS_LIST_LIMIT",
+        environ_prefix=None,
+    )
+
     # pylint: disable=invalid-name
     @property
     def ENVIRONMENT(self):