Potential vulnerability in Apache Tomcat Webdav servlet

Subject: [SECURITY] Potential vulnerability in Apache Tomcat Webdav servlet
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:40:24 -0400
From: Kevan Miller <kevan.miller@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dev@geronimo.apache.org
To: Geronimo Dev <dev@geronimo.apache.org>

The Geronimo project has learned of a security vulnerability in the
Apache Tomcat Webdav Servlet implementation. If you use a Tomcat
configuration of Geronimo and configure a write-enabled Webdav servlet,
you may be affected by this vulnerability. If you do not configure the
Webdav servlet or configure read-only Webdav servlets, you are not
impacted by this vulnerability. Jetty configurations of Geronimo are not
affected by this vulnerability.

This vulnerability impacts all Geronimo releases. Up to and including
Geronimo 2.0.2.

For specific information regarding the Tomcat issue, see http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/tomcat-users/200710.mbox/%3c47135C2D.1000705@apache.org%3e

By default, Geronimo releases do not use the Webdav servlet. However, it
is possible for the Webdav Servlet to be configured or referenced by a
user-written application.

The Webdav Servlet could be explicitly configured in a web.xml
<http://web.xml/> deployment descriptor as follows:

...
<servlet>
<servlet-name>webdav</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.WebdavServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>readonly</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</init-param>
</servlet>

Alternatively, a user's application could extend the WebdavServlet, for
example:

import org.apache.catalina.servlets.WebdavServlet;
public class MyServlet extends WebdavServlet {
...

If you configure a write-enabled Webdav servlet, we recommend that you:

• Disable write access to the Webdav Servlet until this problem has
  been fixed, or
• Limit access to the Webdav servlet to only trusted users.

This vulnerability will be fixed in the next release of Geronimo (2.0.3
and/or 2.1).

--kevan