Question

Is it be possible to encrypt the temp folder of Tomcat 6.0 running on Linux?

Answer 1

Got the encryption working using fuse encfs.

• Check for encfs in existing yum, if not found, need to enable rpmforge repo.
• Install encfs yum package.
• Unlink the existing temp directory, delete the directory if not a soft link.
• Switch to tomcat user, create 2 directories. temp [for encrypted files] and temp_main [for decrypted files].
• mount temp_main directory using encfs [as tomcat user].
• Modify tomcat6.conf to point to temp_main folder as CATALINA_TMPDIR.
• Start the tomcat and see if the files are being created in the temp_dir folder. These should be decrypted files.
• Check temp directory to list/view the encrypted files.
• Make the mount point boot persistent.

After the whole process, there will be 2 directories, one with encrypted data and one with decrypted data.
The encrypted folder is accessible to read, but the files [including the files/directories names] will be encrypted.
The decrypted data folder will be accessible only to tomcat user and will not be accessible to any other user,
root included (unless root switches to tomcat user).

-Noman A.