The vCenter UI service deployXML attribute must be disabled.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-259127	VCUI-80-000138	SV-259127r935285_rule		Medium

Description
The Host element controls deployment. Automatic deployment allows for simpler management but also makes it easier for an attacker to deploy a malicious application. Automatic deployment is controlled by the autoDeploy and deployOnStartup attributes. If both are false, only Contexts defined in server.xml will be deployed, and any changes will require a Tomcat restart. In a hosted environment where web applications may not be trusted, set the deployXML attribute to "false" to ignore any context.xml packaged with the web application that may try to assign increased privileges to the web application. Note that if the security manager is enabled, the deployXML attribute will default to false.

Description

The Host element controls deployment. Automatic deployment allows for simpler management but also makes it easier for an attacker to deploy a malicious application. Automatic deployment is controlled by the autoDeploy and deployOnStartup attributes. If both are false, only Contexts defined in server.xml will be deployed, and any changes will require a Tomcat restart. In a hosted environment where web applications may not be trusted, set the deployXML attribute to "false" to ignore any context.xml packaged with the web application that may try to assign increased privileges to the web application. Note that if the security manager is enabled, the deployXML attribute will default to false.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance User Interface (UI) Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-10-29

Details

Check Text ( C-62867r935283_chk )
At the command prompt, run the following command: # xmllint --xpath "//Host/@deployXML" /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/server.xml Expected result: deployXML="false" If "deployXML" does not equal "false", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-62776r935284_fix)
Navigate to and open: /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/server.xml Navigate to the node and configure with the value "deployXML="false"". Restart the service with the following command: # vmon-cli --restart vsphere-ui