UTF-8 support in POST body information (forms)

Edit WebSEAL configuration file to configure how WebSEAL processes data in POST bodies that contain information from forms.

The forms that provide data to the server are forms that are part of WebSEAL, such as login forms. These forms all declare the character set to be UTF-8. Thus the default value is yes. If an administrator edits these forms and changes the character set to a non-UTF-8 setting, such as a local code page, this configuration setting must be changed. If some forms use UTF-8 and some use a local code page, use the auto value. If all forms are modified to use a non-UTF-8 setting, use the no value.

[server]
utf8-form-support-enabled = {yes|no|auto}

The three possible values are as follows:

• yes

  WebSEAL recognizes only UTF-8 encoding in forms and the data is used without modification. These UTF-8 characters are then validated and taken into account when it processes the data. Other encoding techniques are not accepted.

  When double-byte-encoding is set to yes, Unicode of the form %HH%HH is supported. When a double-byte Unicode character is detected, the entire string must be double-byte encoded.

  This value is the default value and appropriate for most environments.

• no

  WebSEAL does not recognize UTF-8 encoding in forms. Used for local code page only. If the form data can be validated, it is converted to UTF-8 for internal use.

• auto

  WebSEAL attempts to distinguish between UTF-8 and other forms of language character encoding. WebSEAL correctly processes any correctly constructed UTF-8 input. If the encoding does not appear to be UTF-8, then the coding is processed as non-UTF-8.

Parent topic: Web server configuration

Related concepts

• Content caching
• Communication protocol configuration
• IPv4 and IPv6 overview
• IPv6: Compatibility support
• IP levels for credential attributes
• LDAP directory server configuration
• WebSEAL worker thread configuration
• WebSEAL worker threads
• Global allocation of worker threads for junctions
• Per-junction allocation of worker threads for junctions
• HTTP data compression
• WebSEAL data handling by using UTF-8
• UTF-8 dependency on user registry configuration
• UTF-8 data conversion issues
• UTF-8 impact on authentication
• UTF-8 impact on authorization (dynamic URL)
• Encoding type usage
• UTF-8 support for uniform resource locators
• UTF-8 support in query strings
• UTF-8 encoding of tokens for cross domain single signon
• UTF-8 encoding of tokens for e-community single signon
• UTF-8 encoding of cookies for failover authentication
• UTF-8 encoding of cookies for LTPA authentication
• UTF-8 encoding in junction requests
• Validation of character encoding in request data
• Set system environment variables
• Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) Support

Related tasks

• Specify the WebSEAL host name
• Modify the configuration file settings
• Configure WebSEAL for IPv6 and IPv4 requests

Related reference

• IPv6: Upgrade notes
• Allocation view of worker threads for junctions
• Supported wildcard pattern matching characters