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The "FAQ/Password" page has been changed by TimFunk. http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ/Password?action=diff&rev1=6&rev2=7 -------------------------------------------------- In [[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/|The Cathedral and the Bazaar]], Eric S. Raymond recounts a story where his fetchmail users asked for encrypted passwords in the .fetchmailrc file (which is almost identical to the situation posed here with server.xml). He refused [[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s09.html|using the same arguments posed here]]: encrypting or otherwise obfuscating the password in server.xml does not provide any real security: only "security by obscurity" which isn't actually secure. - Of course, auditors do not like this answer. So there are some ways to get around this ... + Auditors do not like this answer. In order to please auditors, feel free to do any of the following. Please be aware, that all of the following are "security by obscurity" and are not making the Tomcat more secure. But it may allow you to pass an auditors checklist .... - * Use properties replacement so that in the xml config you have ${db.password} and in conf/catalina.properties you put the password there. You are not safer, but the auditors may be happy. + * Use properties replacement so that in the xml config you have ${db.password} and in conf/catalina.properties you put the password there. - * Since server.xml is an XML file — you can use XML entities. For example: "woot" becomes "woot" which is a way to obscure the password. + * Since server.xml is an XML file — you can use XML entities. For example: "woot" becomes "&#119;&#111;&#111;&#116;" which is a way to obscure the password. You may even go through an extra layer of indirection by converting ${db.password} into XML entities so that the property replacement above is also performed. (But remember, while "clever, not more secure) * XML entities can be read from an external file. That is, add the following lines at the top of server.xml just above the {{{<Server>}}} element: {{{ @@ -20, +20 @@ . Now, whenever you write {{{&resources;}}} in the text below, it will be replaced by the content of the file "resources.txt". The file path is relative to the conf directory. * Write your own datasource implementation which wraps your datasource and obscure your brains out ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_cipher|XOR]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROT13|ROT13]] are great candidates for this since their strength matches the protection you'll actually get). See the docs on how to do this. * Write your own {{{javax.naming.spi.ObjectFactory}}} implementation that creates and configures your datasource. - * (Tomcat 7) Write your own {{{org.apache.tomcat.util.IntrospectionUtils.PropertySource}}} implementation to 'decrypt' passwords that are 'encrypted' in catalina.properties and referenced via ${...} in server.xml. You'll need to set the system property {{{org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.PROPERTY_SOURCE}}} to point to your !PropertySource implementation. This won't provide any real security, it just adds another level of indirection - i.e. 'security by obscurity'. + * (Tomcat 7) Write your own {{{org.apache.tomcat.util.IntrospectionUtils.PropertySource}}} implementation to 'decrypt' passwords that are 'encrypted' in catalina.properties and referenced via ${...} in server.xml. You'll need to set the system property {{{org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.PROPERTY_SOURCE}}} to point to your !PropertySource implementation. ---- [[CategoryFAQ]] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@tomcat.apache.org
