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Michael,

On 2/13/19 13:35, Adams, Michael wrote:
> I currently am running Apache Tomcat 8.5.13.0 on Windows Server
> 2012 R2 servers to support a NCR Aptra Vision application.  A
> Tripwire vulnerability scan showed the servers have the Apache
> Tomcat CVE-2017-12617 Vulnerability.  To mitigate I see I could
> upgrade to Apache Tomcat 8.5.23 or later.   Instead of upgrading to
> 8.5.23 or later, I am wanting to 'turn off' HTTP PUT
> functionality.> I have this simple question: Is it possible to
> mitigate the vulnerability by just adding/setting the init-param
> readonly param value to true for the DefaultServer in the Apache
> TomCat instance ../conf/web.xml file? Or is Tomcat 8.5.23 or higher
> required for Apache TomCat to properly process the DefaultServer's
> setting when I set the readonly parameter to true?
Yes and no.

First of all, conf/web.xml should default to readonly=true and it
would be a huge security vulnerability to set it to false. It is never
safe to set readonly=false in conf/web.xml because it would affect all
applications deployed that do not explicitly set the readonly flag for
DefaultServlet... and most don't.

Which brings me to the "no" part of the above.

If an individual application specifies readonly=false in its web.xml
file (found in WEBAPP/WEB-INF/web.xml), then the setting at the
top-level will not disable PUT and DELETE requests.

AFAIK, there is no way to completely disable it on the server,
overriding the configuration of the deployed web applications.

> The reason I ask is this: The Tripwire test still found the Tomcat 
> CVE-2017-12617 Vulnerability even after I did the following on the 
> Windoww Server 2012 R2 servers: Stopped Apache Tomcat intance, made
> the configuration change to the ../conf/web.xml file shown below,
> and re-started Apache Tomcat.

I can think of two possible reasons:

1. One of your web applications is specifying readonly=false for the
DefaultServlet. This would (a) be very uncommon if true and (b)
usually means that the application *absolutely must* have it set up
that way. It's an unusual configuration mistake to make... you really
have to go out of your way to make this unsafe.

2. Your TripWire scan is checking the version number of the server and
complaining about everything that could possibly be in it, rather than
giving you a honest report of what vulnerabilities are actually
exploitable in your environment.

> The following should make the context read-only and HTTP commands
> like PUT and DELETE to be rejected. <servlet> 
> <servlet-name>default</servlet-name> 
> <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet</servlet-cl
ass>
>
> 
<init-param>
> <param-name>debug</param-name> <param-value>0</param-value> 
> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>listings</param-name> 
> <param-value>false</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> 
> <param-name>readonly</param-name> <param-value>true</param-value> 
> </init-param> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> </servlet>
> 
> Your help in the following matter would be much appreciated.

That should be fine, but it should also be the default and therefore
unnecessary.

Check each of the deployed web applications to see if they are
defining the default servlet. You should be able to do a "FIND" on
each of the app/WEB-INF/web.xml for DefaultServlet to see if anything
is in there.

If that doesn't show any re-definitions of the DefaultServlet, they it
looks like a version bump is the only thing that will make TripWire happ
y.

Fortunately, upgrading Tomcat between point-releases should not be a
very traumatic experience. If you'd like some help with that, just ask.

- -chris
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