STIGUI
V-256749CAT II — Medium severitySV-256749r960765_rule

The Security Token Service must record user access in a format that enables monitoring of remote access.

Rule version VCST-70-000005 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-09

Discussion

Remote access can be exploited by an attacker to compromise the server. By recording all remote access activities, it will be possible to determine the attacker's location, intent, and degree of success.

Tomcat can be configured with an "AccessLogValve", a component that can be inserted into the request processing pipeline to provide robust access logging. The "AccessLogValve" creates log files in the same format as those created by standard web servers. When "AccessLogValve" is properly configured, log files will contain all the forensic information necessary in the case of a security incident.

Satisfies: SRG-APP-000016-WSR-000005, SRG-APP-000093-WSR-000053, SRG-APP-000095-WSR-000056, SRG-APP-000096-WSR-000057, SRG-APP-000097-WSR-000058, SRG-APP-000098-WSR-000059, SRG-APP-000098-WSR-000060, SRG-APP-000099-WSR-000061, SRG-APP-000100-WSR-000064, SRG-APP-000374-WSR-000172, SRG-APP-000375-WSR-000171

Check

At the command prompt, run the following command:

# xmllint --format /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml | sed '2 s/xmlns=".*"//g' | xmllint --xpath '/Server/Service/Engine/Host/Valve[@className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve"]/@pattern' - 

Expected result:

pattern="%t %I [RemoteIP] %{X-Forwarded-For}i %u [Request] %h:%{remote}p to local %{local}p - %H %m %U%q [Response] %s - %b bytes [Perf] process %Dms / commit %Fms / conn [%X]"

If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix

Navigate to and open:

/usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml

Inside the <Host> node, find the "AccessLogValve" <Valve> node and replace the "pattern" element as follows:

pattern="%t %I [RemoteIP] %{X-Forwarded-For}i %u [Request] %h:%{remote}p to local %{local}p - %H %m %U%q [Response] %s - %b bytes [Perf] process %Dms / commit %Fms / conn [%X]"

Restart the service with the following command:

# vmon-cli --restart sts

Identifiers

Group ID
V-256749
Group title
SRG-APP-000016-WSR-000005
Rule ID
SV-256749r960765_rule
Check ID
C-60424r889215_chk
Fix ID
F-60367r889216_fix