The Tomcat $CATALINA_HOME/conf directory contains Tomcat configuration files. It is recommended that the ownership of this directory be tomcat_admin:tomcat. It is also recommended that the permissions on this directory deny read, write, and execute for the world (o-rwx) and deny write access to the group (g-w). Rationale: Restricting access to these directories will prevent local users from maliciously or inadvertently altering Tomcat's configuration.
Solution
Perform the following to restrict access to Tomcat configuration files: Set the ownership of the $CATALINA_HOME/conf to tomcat_admin:tomcat. # chown tomcat_admin:tomcat $CATALINA_HOME/conf Remove write permissions for the group and read, write, and execute permissions for the world. # chmod g-w,o-rwx $CATALINA_HOME/conf Default Value: The default permissions of the top-level directories are 770.