Struts security updates for Crowd

Question

Hi there,

My first time to post regarding my setup. Basically I have the following set up on premise.

* Crowd 2.8.3 (Build:#648 - 2015-06-01)
* JIRA (v7.4.2#74004-sha1:586975d)
* Confluence 5.5.2
* Stash v3.8.0

Upon closer inspection at my deployment, my Crowd is using Struts, and worst, it's vulnerable. I could be using perhaps Struts version 2.3.29.

It states here that Struts can be updated separately without impacting Crowd. However, upon testing, Crowd stopped working after updating struts only. So my only option is to upgrade Crowd to a non-vulnerable version.

There have been a couple of major security updates with Struts that have been released even after the advisory above, with the latest one released only a few days ago which requires me to update to the latest Struts 2.5.16.

Now, I am at a dilemma, that I may need to upgrade both Crowd as well as Struts!

I am however, hesitant to upgrade/patch as it might break or change the way my users (JIRA, Confluence, Stash) operate which I would not want to take risk at.

My question is:

* Will upgrading Crowd not impose any operational changes that the users will have to adjust to? They operate only in JIRA/Confluence/Stash
* Follow-up to my question above... which version of Crowd do I apply that can support Struts 2.5.16?

Thank you.

Regards,

Edmon

Marcin Kempa · Answer

This questions was also answered here https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Crowd-questions/Re-Crowd-security-updates/qaq-p/763971/comment-id/3066#M3066

kennyngkk · Answer

Hi Edmon,

From the look at your question, I have verified that the version of Crowd you are using is Struts version 2.3.20.1.

* I have also checked the latest version of Crowd, it is currently using Struts version 2.5.13.
* it looks like Crowd 3.2 is under development with Struts 2.5.16 with estimation time of release about the end of this month or beginning of next month.

You will not need to update struts as this is in build into the crowd. All you need to do is update Crowd and it will be updated.

For functionality wise, I don't think it will impact any operational. However is always better be safe the sorry

* Have a look at the changed summary Crowd Change Summary
* Do the changes in a test instance before proceeding with production

Let us know if you have any further inquiry.