Possible to block a Java applet from writing log files?

Question

We use a custom build Java applet daily on a host, but each time it writes a debug log file.

We don't have the source code for the applet.

It is possible to somehow block the applet from writing this log file?

It would be really nice, if read and write permissions could be disabled for the Java Applet.

Answer 1

In the JRE's lib/security directory is a file called java.policy. There are any number of capabilities you can add/deny in there, based on app/class/jar name?. If I remember correctly, a user can have a .java.policy in their home directory allowing you to control things on a per user basis. There is also a little GUI in the JRE bin directory called policytool for editing the policies. It's many years since I've set this up but we started with a deny all policy, ran the app and added capabilities until the app started to work.

Here are some URL's to get you started:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v6r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.websphere.express.doc/info/exp/ae/rsec_javapolicy.html

This is the number 1 hit on google for "java.policy", it's from 1998:

http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.3/docs/guide/security/PolicyFiles.html