Question

Can I set Tomcat (or my webapp if it’s done that way) to require SSL for confidentiality of the built-in Form-Based Login mechanism?

i.e. to protect the users credentials, and use standard http for any other transactions?

Answer 1

You can put your login forms in its own directory and just require SSL for the directory,

<security-constraint>
  <display-name>Login Pages</display-name>
  <web-resource-collection>
     <web-resource-name>Login</web-resource-name>
     <url-pattern>/login/*</url-pattern>
     <http-method>POST</http-method>
  </web-resource-collection>
  <user-data-constraint>
     <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
  </user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>

Make sure your login form is in this path,

<login-config>
  <auth-method>FORM</auth-method>
  <form-login-config>
    <form-login-page>/login/form_login.jsp</form-login-page>
    <form-error-page>/login/error.jsp</form-error-page>
  </form-login-config>
</login-config>

Of course, you need to have a SSL connector setup on your Tomcat.