Severe security constraints while tomcat 8 startup

Question

I am getting the below severe message while the tomcat 8 comes up with liferay.

SEVERE [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.tomcat.util.descriptor.web.SecurityConstraint.findUncoveredHttpMethods For security constraints with URL pattern [/bg/c/portal/protected] only the HTTP methods [POST GET] are covered. All other methods are uncovered.
03-Sep-2015 07:06:00.733 SEVERE [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.tomcat.util.descriptor.web.SecurityConstraint.findUncoveredHttpMethods For security constraints with URL pattern [/sv/c/portal/protected] only the HTTP methods [POST GET] are covered. All other methods are uncovered.
03-Sep-2015 07:06:00.733 SEVERE [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.tomcat.util.descriptor.web.SecurityConstraint.findUncoveredHttpMethods For security constraints with URL pattern [/zh/c/portal/protected] only the HTTP methods [POST GET] are covered. All other methods are uncovered.

This does not have any impact on server start up but not sure what is causing this? Any help would really appreciated.

Answer 1

It means that in web.xml someone has specified a security constraint just for methods POST and GET on pattern /bg/c/portal/protected, possibly in a similar way to this:

<security-constraint>
    <web-resource-collection>
        <url-pattern>/bg/c/portal/protected</url-pattern>
        <http-method>POST</http-method>
        <http-method>GET</http-method>
    </web-resource-collection>
    <user-data-constraint>
        <transport-guarantee>...</transport-guarantee>
    </user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>

You should either remove http-method brackets so it will match all methods for this url-pattern or create second one if you would like to set different security constraints on it without any http-method brackets.

For instance if you would like to secure with SSL /bg/c/portal/protected endpoint for the POST and GET methods, but for others you do not need that then you should create a config like this:

<security-constraint>
    <web-resource-collection>
        <url-pattern>/bg/c/portal/protected</url-pattern>
        <http-method>POST</http-method>
        <http-method>GET</http-method>
    </web-resource-collection>
    <user-data-constraint>
        <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
    </user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>
<security-constraint>
    <web-resource-collection>
        <url-pattern>/bg/c/portal/protected</url-pattern>
    </web-resource-collection>
    <user-data-constraint>
        <transport-guarantee>NONE</transport-guarantee>
    </user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>

As you see now all methods for this pattern are covered, hence no error will be thrown.