A security-hardened Tomcat container for thredds-docker and ramadda-docker.
This repository contains files necessary to build and run a security hardened Tomcat Docker container, based off of a canonical Tomcat base image. The Unidata Tomcat Docker images associated with this repository are available on Docker Hub. All default web applications have been expunged from this container so it will primarily serve as a base image for other containers.
This Tomcat container was security hardened according to OWASP recommendations. Specifically,
- Eliminated default Tomcat web applications
- Run Tomcat with unprivileged user
tomcat
(viaentrypoint.sh
) - Start Tomcat via Tomcat Security Manager (via
entrypoint.sh
) - All files in
CATALINA_HOME
are owned by usertomcat
(viaentrypoint.sh
) - Files in
CATALINA_HOME/conf
are read only (400
) by usertomcat
(viaentrypoint.sh
) - Container-wide
umask
of007
The following changes have been made to web.xml from the out-of-the-box version:
- Added
SAMEORIGIN
anti-clickjacking option - HTTP header security filter (
httpHeaderSecurity
) uncommented/enabled - Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) filtering (
CorsFilter
) added/enabled (see below to disable) - Stack traces are not returned to user through
error-page
element.
This image enables the Apache Tomcat CORS filter by default. To disable it (maybe you want to handle CORS uniformly in a proxying webserver?), set environment variable DISABLE_CORS
to 1
.
The following changes have been made to server.xml from the out-of-the-box version:
- Server version information is obscured to user via
server
attribute for allConnector
elements secure
attribute set totrue
for allConnector
elements- Shutdown port disabled
- Digested passwords. See next section.
The active Connector
has relaxedPathChars
and relaxedQueryChars
attributes. This change may not be optimal for security, but must be done to accommodate DAP requests which THREDDS and RAMADDA must perform.
This container has a UserDatabaseRealm
, Realm
element in server.xml
with a default CredentialHandler
algorithm
of sha-512
. This modification is an improvement over the clear text password default that comes with the parent container (tomcat:8.5-jdk11
). Passwords defined in tomcat-users.xml
must use digested passwords in the password
attributes of the user
elements. Generating a digested password is simple. Here is an example for the sha-512
digest algorithm:
docker run tomcat /usr/local/tomcat/bin/digest.sh -a "sha-512" mysupersecretpassword
This command will yield something like:
mysupersecretpassword:94e334bc71163a69f2e984e73741f610e083a8e11764ee3e396f6935c3911f49$1$a5530e17501f83a60286f6363a8647a277c9cfdb
The hash after the :
is what you will use for the password
attribute in tomcat-users.xml
.
More information about this topic is available in the Tomcat documentation.
We strive to maintain the security of this project's DockerHub images by updating them with the latest upstream security improvements. If you have any security concerns, please email us at [email protected] to bring them to our attention.
See tags listed on dockerhub. Note, these versions are not necessarily static and will evolve due to upstream image changes. It's recommended to check regularly to ensure you have the latest image.
Before you begin using this Docker container project, make sure your system has Docker installed. Docker Compose is optional but recommended.
You can either pull the image from DockerHub with:
docker pull unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
Or you can build it yourself with:
- Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/Unidata/tomcat-docker.git
- Navigate to the project directory:
cd tomcat-docker
- Build the Docker image:
docker build -t tomcat-docker:<version>
.
Note that this project is meant to serve as a base image for other containerized Docker Tomcat web applications. Refer to the image created by this project in your Dockerfile. For example:
FROM unidata/tomcat-docker:8.5-jdk11
Sometimes it is useful to enter this container via bash and poke around, just to see what is there. For example,
docker run -it unidata/tomcat-docker:8.5-jdk11 bash
The problem with mounted Docker volumes and UID/GID mismatch headaches is best explained here: https://denibertovic.com/posts/handling-permissions-with-docker-volumes/.
This container allows the possibility of controlling the UID/GID of the tomcat
user inside the container via TOMCAT_USER_ID
and TOMCAT_GROUP_ID
environment variables. If not set, the default UID/GID is 1000/1000
. For example,
docker run --name tomcat \
-e TOMCAT_USER_ID=`id -u` \
-e TOMCAT_GROUP_ID=`getent group $USER | cut -d':' -f3` \
-v `pwd`/logs:/usr/local/tomcat/logs/ \
-v /path/to/your/webapp:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps \
-d -p 8080:8080 unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
where TOMCAT_USER_ID
and TOMCAT_GROUP_ID
have been configured with the UID/GID of the user running the container. If using docker-compose
, see compose.env
to configure the UID/GID of user tomcat
inside the container.
This feature enables greater control of file permissions written outside the container via mounted volumes (e.g., files contained within the Tomcat logs directory such as catalina.out
).
Note that containers that inherit this container and have overridden entrypoint.sh
will have to take into account user tomcat
is no longer assumed in the Dockerfile
. Rather the tomcat
user is now created within the entrypoint.sh
and those overriding entrypoint.sh
should take this fact into account. Also note that this UID/GID configuration option will not work on operating systems where Docker is not native (e.g., macOS).
This Tomcat container can support HTTPS for either self-signed certificates which can be useful for experimentation or certificates from a CA for a production server. For a complete treatment on this topic, see https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.5-doc/ssl-howto.html.
This Tomcat container can support HTTP over SSL. For example, generate a self-signed certificate with openssl
(or better yet, obtain a real certificate from a certificate authority):
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -days 3650 -nodes -x509 -subj \
"/C=US/ST=Colorado/L=Boulder/O=Unidata/CN=tomcat.example.com" -keyout \
./ssl.key -out ./ssl.crt
Then augment the server.xml
from this repository with this additional XML snippet for Tomcat SSL capability:
<Connector port="8443"
maxThreads="150"
enableLookups="false"
disableUploadTimeout="true"
acceptCount="100"
scheme="https"
secure="true"
SSLEnabled="true"
SSLCertificateFile="${catalina.base}/conf/ssl.crt"
SSLCertificateKeyFile="${catalina.base}/conf/ssl.key" />
Mount over the existing server.xml
and add the SSL certificate and private key with:
docker run -it -d -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
-v /path/to/server.xml:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/server.xml \
-v /path/to/ssl.crt:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/ssl.crt \
-v /path/to/ssl.key:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/ssl.key \
unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
or if using docker-compose
the docker-compose.yml
will look like:
unidata-tomcat:
image: unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
ports:
- "80:8080"
- "443:8443"
volumes:
- /path/to/ssl.crt:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/ssl.crt
- /path/to/ssl.key:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/ssl.key
- /path/to/server.xml:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/server.xml
First, obtain a certificate from a certificate authority (CA). This process will yield a .key
and .crt
file. To meet enhanced security guidelines you, will want to serve a certificate with the intermediate and root certificates present in the ssl.crt
file. For Tomcat to serve the certificate chain, you have to put your .key
and .crt
(containing the intermediate and root certificates) in a Java keystore. The Keystore Explorer tool is a helpful app to assist you in building a valid certificate chain as well as exploring Java keystores.
First put the .key
and .crt
in a .p12
file:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in ssl.crt.fullchain -inkey ssl.key -out ssl.p12 -name \
mydomain.com
Then add the .p12
file to the keystore:
keytool -importkeystore -destkeystore keystore.jks -srckeystore ssl.p12 \
-srcstoretype PKCS12
When prompted for passwords in the two steps above, consider reusing the same password to reduce cognitive load. If you see the following message
Warning: The JKS keystore uses a proprietary format. It is recommended to
migrate to PKCS12 which is an industry standard format using "keytool
-importkeystore -srckeystore keystore.jks -destkeystore keystore.jks
-deststoretype pkcs12".
ignore it.
You'll then refer to that keystore in your server.xml
:
<Connector port="8443"
protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"
clientAuth="false"
sslProtocol="TLSv1.2, TLSv1.3"
ciphers="ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256,ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256,ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384,ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384,ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305,ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305,DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256,DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384"
maxThreads="150"
enableLookups="false"
disableUploadTimeout="true"
acceptCount="100"
scheme="https"
secure="true"
SSLEnabled="true"
keystoreFile="${catalina.base}/conf/keystore.jks"
keyAlias="mydomain.com"
keystorePass="xxxx"
/>
Note there are a few differences with the Connector
described for the self-signed certificate above. These additions are made according to enhanced security guidelines.
Mount over the existing server.xml
and add the SSL certificate and private key with:
docker run -it -d -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
-v /path/to/server.xml:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/server.xml \
-v /path/to/ssl.jks:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/ssl.jks \
unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
or if using docker-compose
the docker-compose.yml
will look like:
unidata-tomcat:
image: unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
ports:
- "80:8080"
- "443:8443"
volumes:
- /path/to/ssl.jks:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/ssl.jks
- /path/to/server.xml:/usr/local/tomcat/conf/server.xml
Once you have your certificates in order, make HTTPS mandatory. Add this snippet as the final element in web.xml
. Mount over the web.xml
inside the container with this enhanced web.xml
in the same manner we have been doing to server.xml
as discussed herein.
<!-- Force HTTPS, required for HTTP redirect! -->
<security-constraint>
<web-resource-collection>
<web-resource-name>Protected Context</web-resource-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>
<user-data-constraint>
<transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
</user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>
If you would like to do a small test to ensure the Unidata Tomcat Docker image is working:
mkdir -p /tmp/test
wget -O /tmp/test/sample.war https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.5-doc/appdev/sample/sample.war
docker run --name tomcat -e TOMCAT_USER_ID=1000 -e TOMCAT_GROUP_ID=1000 -v /tmp/test/:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps -d -p 8080:8080 unidata/tomcat-docker:<version>
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/sample/index.html
This should yield some HTML that starts like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>Sample "Hello, World" Application</title>
</head>
...