[fix] secret_key can be bytes instead of a string (#1602)

Fix #1600
In settings.yml, the secret_key can be written as string or as base64 encoded data using !!binary notation.

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/searx/utils.py b/searx/utils.py
index dfa22c5f..6619dd0a 100644
--- a/searx/utils.py
+++ b/searx/utils.py
@@ -384,10 +384,17 @@ def load_module(filename, module_dir):
 
 
 def new_hmac(secret_key, url):
+    try:
+        secret_key_bytes = bytes(secret_key, 'utf-8')
+    except TypeError as err:
+        if isinstance(secret_key, bytes):
+            secret_key_bytes = secret_key
+        else:
+            raise err
     if sys.version_info[0] == 2:
         return hmac.new(bytes(secret_key), url, hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
     else:
-        return hmac.new(bytes(secret_key, 'utf-8'), url, hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
+        return hmac.new(secret_key_bytes, url, hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
 
 
 def to_string(obj):