How to restrict acess to a context on reverse proxied tomcat context?

Question

I have a tomcat application running with an apache reverse proxy. I'm trying to restrict access to the manager and host-manager contexts from localhost only.

So I uncommented the following line on context.xml file from both contexts:

<!-- Remove the comment markers from around the Valve below to limit access to the manager application to clients connecting from localhost --> <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve" allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" /> 

But when I try to access these contexts from localhost it always shows me the error 403 page.

I didn't get the d+ thing in the allow attribute so I also tried allow="127\.0\.0\.1|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" too with no luck.

Is there something wrong in my context.xml configuration?

Does it behave different when filtering connections when they pass first through apache's mod_proxy (ProxyPass ajp://localhost:8009)?

Thanks

Answer 1

There are two different mechanisms in play here: restricting access to a context (which is done using the RemoteAddrValve) and the built-in RBAC in server.xml:

<Resource name="UserDatabase" auth="Container" type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase" description="User database that can be updated and saved" factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory" pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" /> 

The following has been tested using tomcat-8.0.23:

A stock configuration only modified to restrict access from localhost to the manager context by modifying the apache-tomcat-8.0.23/webapps/manager/META-INF/context.xml file to remove the comments on the valve:

<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve" allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" /> 

Without further modifications, an attempt to access the context fails with a 401 HTTP error:

$ curl -v -L localhost:8080/manager/ * Trying ::1... * Connected to localhost (::1) port 8080 (#0) > GET /manager/ HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.40.0 > Host: localhost:8080 > Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 302 Found < Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=F3F2A25463ED1CD49E154FA5428B853A; Path=/manager/; HttpOnly < Location: http://localhost:8080/manager/html;jsessionid=F3F2A25463ED1CD49E154FA5428B853A?org.apache.catalina.filters.CSRF_NONCE=B5CB272DF379F59A8158583826850550 < Content-Type: text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1 < Content-Length: 0 < Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:47:27 GMT < * Connection #0 to host localhost left intact * Issue another request to this URL: 'http://localhost:8080/manager/html;jsessionid=F3F2A25463ED1CD49E154FA5428B853A?org.apache.catalina.filters.CSRF_NONCE=B5CB272DF379F59A8158583826850550' * Found bundle for host localhost: 0x256e460 * Re-using existing connection! (#0) with host localhost * Connected to localhost (::1) port 8080 (#0) > GET /manager/html;jsessionid=F3F2A25463ED1CD49E154FA5428B853A?org.apache.catalina.filters.CSRF_NONCE=B5CB272DF379F59A8158583826850550 HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.40.0 > Host: localhost:8080 > Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized < Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 < Cache-Control: private < Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 GMT < WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Tomcat Manager Application" < Content-Type: text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1 < Content-Length: 2474 < Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:47:27 GMT 

After modifying the apache-tomcat-8.0.23/conf/tomcat-users.xml file to add the following:

<role rolename="manager-gui"/> <user username="tomcat" password="tomcat" roles="manager-gui"/> 

and attempt to access the context, this time using authentication, succeeds:

$ curl -v -L -utomcat:tomcat localhost:8080/manager/ * Trying ::1... * Connected to localhost (::1) port 8080 (#0) * Server auth using Basic with user 'tomcat' > GET /manager/ HTTP/1.1 > Authorization: Basic dG9tY2F0OnRvbWNhdA== > User-Agent: curl/7.40.0 > Host: localhost:8080 > Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 302 Found < Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=7890CA71EC221A152BDB4F04B66BE49E; Path=/manager/; HttpOnly < Location: http://localhost:8080/manager/html;jsessionid=7890CA71EC221A152BDB4F04B66BE49E?org.apache.catalina.filters.CSRF_NONCE=92DAD506CB8E9E24E8454BBA94567F84 < Content-Type: text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1 < Content-Length: 0 < Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:48:09 GMT < * Connection #0 to host localhost left intact * Issue another request to this URL: 'http://localhost:8080/manager/html;jsessionid=7890CA71EC221A152BDB4F04B66BE49E?org.apache.catalina.filters.CSRF_NONCE=92DAD506CB8E9E24E8454BBA94567F84' * Found bundle for host localhost: 0x69e4c0 * Re-using existing connection! (#0) with host localhost * Connected to localhost (::1) port 8080 (#0) * Server auth using Basic with user 'tomcat' > GET /manager/html;jsessionid=7890CA71EC221A152BDB4F04B66BE49E?org.apache.catalina.filters.CSRF_NONCE=92DAD506CB8E9E24E8454BBA94567F84 HTTP/1.1 > Authorization: Basic dG9tY2F0OnRvbWNhdA== > User-Agent: curl/7.40.0 > Host: localhost:8080 > Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 < Cache-Control: private < Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 GMT < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=42B0B26688726A802B665B0B33D1690B; Path=/manager/; HttpOnly < Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8 < Transfer-Encoding: chunked < Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:48:09 GMT 

Now, if you try to use a different interface to perform the request (i.e. not localhost), you will hit a 403 HTTP error, regardless you use authentication or not:

$ curl --interface wlp6s0 -v -L -utomcat:tomcat localhost:8080/manager/ * Trying ::1... * Trying 127.0.0.1... * Local Interface wlp6s0 is ip 192.168.1.187 using address family 2 * SO_BINDTODEVICE wlp6s0 failed with errno 1: Operation not permitted; will do regular bind * Local port: 0 * Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 8080 (#0) * Server auth using Basic with user 'tomcat' > GET /manager/ HTTP/1.1 > Authorization: Basic dG9tY2F0OnRvbWNhdA== > User-Agent: curl/7.40.0 > Host: localhost:8080 > Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden < Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=2F3ADE627300D4D264478927D1F0BBFC; Path=/manager/; HttpOnly < Content-Type: text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1 < Content-Length: 3196 < Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 09:06:52 GMT < 

This is as expected, as we are restricting access from localhost only.

In short, if you get a 403 error response, check the interface tomcat is listening to:

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443" /> $ ss -tulpan | grep LISTEN.*8080 

and the interface you are using for the request.

 tcp LISTEN 0 100 :::8080 :::* users:(("java",pid=32490,fd=48)) 

Answer 2

So, knowing that my requests were being sent from my server's public ip I changed my context.xml to:

<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve" allow="xxx\.xxx\.xxx\.xxx|127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" /> 

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the serve's public ip. It's now working.

Thanks for helping