Hi Chris,

Can this be used to pull in any values, like in the Catalina.properties and set 
that value to a variable? Just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. 😊

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From: Christopher Schultz <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2026 12:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Tomcat 9.0.x securing db credentials in server.xml




Dineshk,



On 1/21/26 4:36 AM, dineshk via users wrote:

> Would like to know the recommended approach to secure the db credentials in 
> Tomcat , defined in server.xml file . The application could be deployed on 
> AKS or as normal on premises deployment.

> Is there any recommended common solution? If not , what recommended approach 
> in each case .

> Please let me know . It would be really helpful.



While I wholeheartedly agree with Mark's separate response, since you

mentioned AKS, I want to draw your attention to an apparently

little-used component of Tomcat:



https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/config/systemprops.html*Property_replacements__;Iw!!F9svGWnIaVPGSwU!u_LCWWE3YwNUQr7YGC0HxCMrnAQPVDMv_7FcyFWxFTcEYF-PIgUiIo5092B5O9eNZ6TklNBfhWYL34W2Zv82m6e21Cd7L3cY$<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/config/systemprops.html*Property_replacements__;Iw!!F9svGWnIaVPGSwU!u_LCWWE3YwNUQr7YGC0HxCMrnAQPVDMv_7FcyFWxFTcEYF-PIgUiIo5092B5O9eNZ6TklNBfhWYL34W2Zv82m6e21Cd7L3cY$>



There is a reference to the ServiceBindingPropertySource which is a

Tomcat component that can be used with resources extracted from e.g.

Kubernetes before Tomcat starts. To be clear: Tomcat does NOT

communicate with AKS directly, but if your deployment drops

environmental files to the disk using the servicebinding.io spec, then

you can just reference those files directly from your e.g. server.xml file.



For example, I don't use Kubernetes, but I have this working in my

environment for JDBC connections:



   <Resource name="${chomp:myapp.jdbc-datasource:-jdbc/conn}"

         auth="Container"

         type="javax.sql.DataSource"

         defaultAutoCommit="true"

         initialSize="1"

         maxTotal="1"

         maxIdle="1"

         maxWaitMillis="10000"

         url="${chomp:myapp.jdbc-url}"

         username="${chomp:myapp.jdbc-username:-scott}"

         password="${chomp:myapp.jdbc-password:-tiger}"



driverClassName="${chomp:myapp.jdbc--driver-class-name:-com.mysql.jdbc.Driver}"

      ... />



Then I have these files in my SERVICE_BINDING_ROOT directory:



/Users/chris/.webapps/service-binding-root

myapp

myapp/jdbc-url

myapp/jdbc-username



I also have this file as well so I can customize the "samesite" setting

in various environments:

myapp/cookies-samesite



There is more documentation in the ServiceBindingPropertySource class

javadoc, which you can find here:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/api/org/apache/tomcat/util/digester/ServiceBindingPropertySource.html__;!!F9svGWnIaVPGSwU!u_LCWWE3YwNUQr7YGC0HxCMrnAQPVDMv_7FcyFWxFTcEYF-PIgUiIo5092B5O9eNZ6TklNBfhWYL34W2Zv82m6e21Lt-9qK6$<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/api/org/apache/tomcat/util/digester/ServiceBindingPropertySource.html__;!!F9svGWnIaVPGSwU!u_LCWWE3YwNUQr7YGC0HxCMrnAQPVDMv_7FcyFWxFTcEYF-PIgUiIo5092B5O9eNZ6TklNBfhWYL34W2Zv82m6e21Lt-9qK6$>



The more I have been using the ServiceBindingPropertySource the more

I've been thinking that I should add documentation to the Tomcat User

Guide for these things because reading Javadoc is yucky.



-chris





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