Bug 56441 - Misleading error message in FilterBase cause by invalid regex
Summary: Misleading error message in FilterBase cause by invalid regex
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Tomcat 7
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Catalina (show other bugs)
Version: 7.0.29
Hardware: All Linux
: P2 minor (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Tomcat Developers Mailing List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-04-22 07:05 UTC by MattR
Modified: 2014-04-26 19:33 UTC (History)
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Description MattR 2014-04-22 07:05:33 UTC 
An invalid regex in the allow parameter leads to raising of a misleading exception: The property "allow" is not defined for filters of type "org.apache.catalina.filters.RemoteAddrFilter".


Test config in web.xml

  <filter>
     <filter-name>TestFilter</filter-name>
     <filter-class>org.apache.catalina.filters.RemoteAddrFilter</filter-class>
     <init-param>
        <param-name>allow</param-name>
        <param-value>127\.0\.\0.1</param-value>
     </init-param>
  </filter>

  <filter-mapping>
     <filter-name>TestFilter</filter-name> 
     <url-pattern>*</url-pattern> 
  </filter-mapping>


Apr 22, 2014 3:50:10 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext filterStart
SEVERE: Exception starting filter TestFilter
javax.servlet.ServletException: The property "allow" is not defined for filters of type "org.apache.catalina.filters.RemoteAddrFilter"
        at org.apache.catalina.filters.FilterBase.init(FilterBase.java:53)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.initFilter(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:269)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.getFilter(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:258)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.setFilterDef(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:382)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.<init>(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:103)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.filterStart(StandardContext.java:4650)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5306)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
        at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:334)
        at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:166)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1110)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:603)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)
Comment 1 Christopher Schultz 2014-04-22 19:41:02 UTC 
Confirmed.

It seems that IntrospectionUtils.setProperty catches things like InvocationTargetException and logs them at the DEBUG level. I assert that such things should be logged at the WARN level.

Without DEBUG logging enabled, a user cannot see the underlying error.
Comment 2 Mark Thomas 2014-04-26 19:33:56 UTC 
I looked into changing the current error message to better describe the problem and to mention enabling debug logs for more detail. The issue with that approach is there are a lot of 'normal' debug logs and a single error.

Logging these errors as warnings seems appropriate to me.

I have fixed this in 8.0.x for 8.0.6 onwards and in 7.0.x for 7.0.54 onwards.