The HTTP X-Frame-Options response header can be used to indicate whether a browser should be allowed to render the document in a <frame>, <iframe>, <embed> or <object>. Sites can use this to avoid clickjacking attacks and some cross-site leaks, by ensuring that their content is not embedded into other sites.

If this header is not sent, and the website has not implemented any other mechanisms to restrict embedding (such as the frame-ancestors CSP directive), then the browser will allow other sites to embed this document.

Syntax

X-Frame-Options: DENY
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN

Directives

DENY

The document cannot be loaded in any frame, regardless of origin (both same- and cross-origin embedding is blocked).

SAMEORIGIN

The document can only be embedded if all ancestor frames have the same origin as the page itself.

ALLOW-FROM origin

This is an obsolete directive. Modern browsers that encounter response headers with this directive will ignore the header completely. The Content-Security-Policy HTTP header has a frame-ancestors directive which you should use instead.

Examples

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 X-Frame-Options to 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;

You can set the X-Frame-Options header to DENY using:

add_header X-Frame-Options DENY 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>

For more information, see the 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 set X-Frame-Options to SAMEORIGIN using Helmet add the following to your server configuration:

import helmet from "helmet";

const app = express();
app.use(
  helmet({
    xFrameOptions: { action: "sameorigin" },
  }),
);

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Content-Security-Policy directive frame-ancestors
• ClickJacking Defenses - IEBlog
• Combating ClickJacking with X-Frame-Options - IEInternals