KB15535: "HTTP Status 401" error occurs when trying to access MicroStrategy Web Universal Administrator using Apache Tomcat

SYMPTOM:
The following error occurs when trying to access Strategy Web Universal Administrator page without providing valid credentials:
 

HTTP Status 401 -
Type: Status report
Message
Description: This request requires HTTP authentication ().

• Deploy Strategy Web Universal war file on Apache Tomcat.
• Access the Strategy Web Universal Administrator page. The user should be prompted with a pop-up similar to the following:
  

• Cancel or type in invalid credentials, for example, username = test123, password = test123.
• After selecting 'OK', users should receive the 'HTTP Status 401' error.

CAUSE:
The credentials requested in the pop-up are for the Tomcat authentication. Strategy Web defines security constraints on the mstrWebAdmin servlet (Strategy Web Administration page) to allow only authenticated users with the "admin" role. Users and roles are defined in the Tomcat configuration file tomcat-users.xml (..\[TOMCAT_DIRECTORY]\conf\tomcat-users.xml). The user must be defined similar to the following:
<role rolename="admin"/>
<role rolename="manager"/>
<role rolename="manager-gui"/>
<user username="admin" password="" roles="admin,manager,manager-gui"/>

 
ACTION:
Refer to Tomcat documentation for more information on Tomcat user management and ensure that a user exists with the "admin" role in order to authenticate and access the Strategy Web Administration page.