cis-tomcat8-v100-7-5

name	cis-tomcat8-v100-7.5
description	Ensure pattern in context.xml is correct (Automated)
category	cis-tomcat
version	1.0.0
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["cis","tomcat","linux","java","logging","log-files"]
cis_id	7.5
cis_benchmark	CIS Apache Tomcat 8 Benchmark v1.0.0
tech_stack	["linux","tomcat","java"]
cwe_ids	[]
chains_with	[]
prerequisites	[]
severity_boost	{}

7.5 Ensure pattern in context.xml is correct (Automated)

Description

The pattern setting informs Tomcat what information should be logged per application. At a minimum, enough information to uniquely identify a request, what was requested, where the requested originated from, and when the request occurred should be logged. The following will log the request date and time (%t), the requested URL (%U), the remote IP address (%a), the local IP address (%A), the request method (%m), the local port (%p), query string, if present, (%q), and the HTTP status code of the response (%s).

pattern="%t %U %a %A %m %p %q %s"

Rationale

The level of logging detail prescribed will assist in identifying correlating security events or incidents.

Audit Procedure

Review the pattern settings to ensure it contains all of the variables required by the installation.

# grep pattern $CATALINA_BASE/webapps/<app_name>/META-INF/context.xml

Remediation

Add the following statement into the $CATALINA_BASE/webapps/<app_name>/META-INF/context.xml file if it does not already exist.

<Valve
className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve"
directory="$CATALINA_HOME/logs/" prefix="access_log" fileDateFormat="yyyy-MM-
dd.HH" suffix=".log"
pattern="%h %t %H cookie:%{SESSIONID}c request:%{SESSIONID}r %m %U %s %q %r"
/>

Default Value

Does not exist by default.

References

1. https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/config/valve.html

CIS Controls

Controls Version	Control	IG 1	IG 2	IG 3
v8	8.5 Collect Detailed Audit Logs Configure detailed audit logging for enterprise assets containing sensitive data. Include event source, date, username, timestamp, source addresses, destination addresses, and other useful elements that could assist in a forensic investigation.