cis-tomcat101-4-12

name	cis-tomcat101-4.12
description	Restrict access to Tomcat server.xml
category	cis-tomcat
version	1.0.0
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["cis","tomcat","linux","java","configuration","file-permissions"]
cis_id	4.12
cis_benchmark	CIS Apache Tomcat 10.1 Benchmark v1.0.0
tech_stack	["linux","tomcat","java"]
cwe_ids	[]
chains_with	[]
prerequisites	[]
severity_boost	{}

4.12 Restrict access to Tomcat server.xml (Automated)

Profile Applicability

• Level 1

Description

server.xml contains Tomcat servlet definitions and configurations. 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.

Audit Procedure

Perform the following to determine if the ownership and permissions on $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml care securely configured.

# cd $CATALINA_HOME/conf/
# find server.xml -follow -maxdepth 0 \( -perm /o+rwx,g+rwx,u+x -o ! -user tomcat_admin -o ! -group tomcat \) -ls

The above command should not produce any output.

Remediation

Perform the following to restrict access to server.xml:

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

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

2. Set the permissions of the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml to 600

# chmod 600 $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml

Default Value

The default permissions of the top-level directories are 600.

References

None

CIS Controls

None

Profile

Level 1