4.14 Restrict access to Tomcat web.xml

Information

web.xml is a Tomcat configuration file that stores application configuration settings. It is recommended that access to this file properly protect from unauthorized changes.

Rationale:

Restricting access to this file will prevent local users from maliciously or inadvertently altering Tomcat's security policy.

Solution

Perform the following to restrict access to web.xml:

Set the ownership of the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml to tomcat_admin:tomcat.

# chown tomcat_admin:tomcat $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml

Set the permissions for the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml file to 400.

# chmod 400 $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml

Default Value:

The default permissions of web.xml are 400.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2509

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-6, CSCv6|3.1, CSCv7|14.6

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: c2d9e7f32d3d477c4ac180776e6421e2ca5e223c6b973a81a0b2b561bc0da46d