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 against 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 for web.xml are 400.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2506