UTF-8 data conversion issues

By default, the appliance will use a UTF-8 code page when running WebSEAL. However, it is possible to configure WebSEAL so that it uses a non-UTF-8 code page. In this environment, WebSEAL needs to convert data upon data input and output.

When WebSEAL reads data in, it must convert the data from non-UTF-8 to UTF-8. When WebSEAL writes out data, it must convert the data from UTF-8 to non-UTF-8.

If conversion to a local code page is required, no data loss occurs when it runs in a UTF-8 locale.

The conversion from a UTF-8 locale to a non-UTF-8 locale (local code page) can, in some situations, result in data loss. For example, if WebSEAL is running in an en_US.ISO8859 environment, and a Japanese user name must be converted to the local code page, the result is a string of question marks ("????"). This result occurs because there is no way to represent Japanese characters in ISO-8859-1. For this reason, WebSEAL must be run by using UTF-8.

WebSEAL generates logging and auditing data by using UTF-8. To prevent possible data loss, use UTF-8 to write the data to the appropriate logging and auditing files. When the local code page is non-UTF-8, data must be converted to non-UTF-8 before it can be written. In this case, the possibility of data loss exists.

All log audit files generated by WebSEAL are in the language specified by the locale in which the server runs. The code page used to write the messages is configurable in the WebSEAL routing file.

Parent topic: Web server configuration

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