Improve the debug mode

utils/__init__.py

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+import logging
+
+logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
+
+def strtobool(s: str) -> bool:
+    if s in ['y', 'yes', 'true', 'on', '1']:
+        return True
+    if s in ['n', 'no', 'false', 'off', '0']:
+        return False
+
+    raise ValueError(f'cannot convert {s} to bool')

utils/urlutils.py

@@ -1,16 +1,24 @@
 import logging
+import os
 import socket
 import ipaddress
 from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
+from . import strtobool
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
-def is_url_valid(url):
+def is_url_valid(url: str) -> bool:
     parsed = urlparse(url)
     if parsed.scheme not in ['http', 'https']:
         return False
 
+    # XXX in debug mode, we want to allow requests to localhost to test the federation with local instances
+    debug_mode = strtobool(os.getenv('MICROBLOGPUB_DEBUG', 'false'))
+    if debug_mode:
+        return True
+
     if parsed.hostname in ['localhost']:
         return False