How to Configure Tomcat to Enable ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER (V-223005)

Products

• CA Spectrum

Issue/Introduction

Secure sites require the ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER setting to be configured and set to true.

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-223005	TCAT-AS-001690	SV-223005r615938_rule		Medium

 

ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER must be set to true. (stigviewer.com)

 

Rule Title: The Java Security Manager must be enabled.

Discussion: Some clients try to guess the character encoding of text media when the mandated default of ISO-8859-1 should be used. Some browsers will interpret as UTF-7 when the characters are safe for ISO-8859-1. This can create the potential for a XSS attack. To defend against this, enforce_encoding_in_get_writer must be set to true.

Check Text:

From the Tomcat server as a privileged user, run the following command:

sudo grep -i enforce_encoding /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

If there are no results, or if the org.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER is not ="true", this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-24666r426460_fix)
From the Tomcat server as a privileged user:

Edit the /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service file, and either add or edit the org.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER setting.

Set the org.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER=true

EXAMPLE:
Environment='CATALINA_OPTS -Dorg.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER=true'

Restart the Tomcat server:
sudo systemctl restart tomcat
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Environment

Release : 21.2

Component : Spectrum OneClick

Resolution

 

1. Created a file named setenv.sh in $SPECROOT/tomcat/bin/

2. Added the following to the setenv.sh

   

#!/bin/sh

CATALINA_OPTS="-Dorg.apache.catalina.connector.RECYCLE_FACADES=true,-Dorg.apache.catalina.STRICT_SERVLET_COMPLIANCE=true,-Dorg.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER=true"

export UMASK="0027"

 

3. Restart tomcat

     cd $SPECROOT/tomcat/bin/
     ./stopTomcat.sh
     ./startTomcat.sh