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Forcing Tomcat to only use secure connections via HTTPS

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Connectors allow clients to establish a connection to Tomcat via the HTTP / HTTPS protocol. Tomcat allows for configuring multiple connectors so that users or devices can either connect via HTTP or HTTPS.

 

Usually users like you and me access websites by just typing the URL in the browser's address bar, e.g. "www.google.com". By default browsers assume that the connection should be established with the HTTP protocol. For HTTPS connections, the protocol has to be specified explictily, e.g. "https://www.google.com"

 

However - Google automatically forwards HTTP connections automatically as a HTTPS connection, so that all connections are using certificates and are via a secure channel and you will end up on "https://www.google.com" anyway.

 

To configure ThingWorx to only allow secure connections there are two options...

 

1) Remove HTTP access

 

If HTTP access is removed, users can no longer connect to the 80 or 8080 port. ThingWorx will only be accessible on port 443 (or 8443).

 

If connecting to port 8080 clients will not be redirected. The redirectPort in the Connector is only forwarding requests internally in Tomcat, not switching protocols and ports and not requiring a certificate when being used. The redirected port does not reflect in the client's connection but only manages internal port-forwarding in Tomcat.

 

By removing the HTTP ports for access any connection on port 80 (or 8080) will end up in an error message that the client cannot connect on this port.

 

To remove the HTTP ports, edit the <Tomcat>\conf\server.xml and comment out sections like

 

 

 

<!-- commented out to disallow connections on port 80
<Connector port="80" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="443" /> -->

 

 

Save and restart Tomcat. If opening Tomcat (and ThingWorx) in a browser via http://myServer/ the connection will fail with a "This site can’t be reached", "ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED" error.

 

2) Forcing insecure connections through secure ports

 

Alternatively, port 80 and 8080 can be kept open to still allow users and devices to connect. But instead of only internally forwarding the port, Tomcat can be setup to also forward the client to the new secure port. With this, users and devices can still use e.g. old bookmarks and do not have to explicitly set the HTTPS protocol in the address.

 

To configure this, edit the <Tomcat>\conf\web.xml and add the following section just before the closing </web-app> tag at the end of the file:

 

 

<security-constraint>
       <web-resource-collection>
             <web-resource-name>HTTPSOnly</web-resource-name>
             <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
       </web-resource-collection>
       <user-data-constraint>
             <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
       </user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>

 

 

In <Tomcat>\conf\web.xml ensure that all HTTP Connectors (port 80 and 8080) have their redirect port set to the secure HTTPS Connector (usually port 443 or port 8443).

 

Save and restart Tomcat. If opening Tomcat (and ThingWorx) in a browser via http://myServer/ the connection will now be forwarded to the secure port. The browser will now show the connection as https://myServer/ instead and connections are secure and using certificates.

 

What next?

 

Configuring Tomcat to force insecure connection to actually secure HTTPS connection just requires a simple configuration change. If you want to read more about certificates, encryption and how to setup ThingWorx for HTTPS in the first place, be sure to also have a look at

 

Trust & Encryption - Theory

Trust & Encryption - Hands On

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Last update:
‎Feb 14, 2018 08:33 AM
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