How to handle invalid SSL certificates with Apache

Question

I know, there are many different questions and so many answers about this problem... But I can't understand...

I have: ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64 + NetBeans6.7.1 installed "as is" from off. rep. I need connecting to some site over the HTTPS. For this I use Apache's HttpClient.

From tutorial I read:

"Once you have JSSE correctly installed, secure HTTP communication over SSL should be as
simple as plain HTTP communication." And some example:

HttpClient httpclient = new HttpClient();
GetMethod httpget = new GetMethod("https://www.verisign.com/"); 
try { 
  httpclient.executeMethod(httpget);
  System.out.println(httpget.getStatusLine());
} finally {
  httpget.releaseConnection();
}

By now, I write this:

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

HttpMethod get = new GetMethod("https://mms.nw.ru");
//get.setDoAuthentication(true);

try {
    int status = client.executeMethod(get);
    System.out.println(status);

    BufferedInputStream is = new BufferedInputStream(get.getResponseBodyAsStream());
    int r=0;byte[] buf = new byte[10];
    while((r = is.read(buf)) > 0) {
        System.out.write(buf,0,r);
    }

} catch(Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

As a result I have a set of errors:

javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
        at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:192)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1627)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:204)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:198)
        at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:994)
        at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.processMessage(ClientHandshaker.java:142)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.processLoop(Handshaker.java:533)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.process_record(Handshaker.java:471)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:904)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.performInitialHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1132)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.writeRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:643)
        at sun.security.ssl.AppOutputStream.write(AppOutputStream.java:78)
        at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flushBuffer(BufferedOutputStream.java:82)
        at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flush(BufferedOutputStream.java:140)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpConnection.flushRequestOutputStream(HttpConnection.java:828)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase.writeRequest(HttpMethodBase.java:2116)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase.execute(HttpMethodBase.java:1096)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeWithRetry(HttpMethodDirector.java:398)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeMethod(HttpMethodDirector.java:171)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:397)
        at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:323)
        at simpleapachehttp.Main.main(Main.java:41)
Caused by: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
        at sun.security.validator.PKIXValidator.doBuild(PKIXValidator.java:302)
        at sun.security.validator.PKIXValidator.engineValidate(PKIXValidator.java:205)
        at sun.security.validator.Validator.validate(Validator.java:235)
        at sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl.validate(X509TrustManagerImpl.java:147)
        at sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl.checkServerTrusted(X509TrustManagerImpl.java:230)
        at sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl.checkServerTrusted(X509TrustManagerImpl.java:270)
        at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:973)
        ... 17 more
Caused by: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
        at sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilder.engineBuild(SunCertPathBuilder.java:191)
        at java.security.cert.CertPathBuilder.build(CertPathBuilder.java:255)
        at sun.security.validator.PKIXValidator.doBuild(PKIXValidator.java:297)
        ... 23 more

What have I to do to create simplest SSL connection? (Probably without KeyManager and Trust manager etc. while.)

Answer 1

Another issue you may run into with self signed test certs is this:

java.io.IOException: HTTPS hostname wrong: should be ...

This error occurs when you are trying to access a HTTPS url. You might have already installed the server certificate to your JRE's keystore. But this error means that the name of the server certificate does not match with the actual domain name of the server that is mentioned in the URL. This normally happens when you are using a non CA issued certificate.

This example shows how to write a HttpsURLConnection DefaultHostnameVerifier that ignore the certificates server name:

http://www.java-samples.com/showtutorial.php?tutorialid=211

Answer 2

EasySSLProtocolSocketFactory was giving me problems so I ended up implementing my own ProtocolSocketFactory.

First you need to register it:

Protocol.registerProtocol("https", new Protocol("https", new TrustAllSSLSocketFactory(), 443));

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
...

Then implement ProtocolSocketFactory:

class TrustAllSSLSocketFactory implements ProtocolSocketFactory {

    public static final TrustManager[] TRUST_ALL_CERTS = new TrustManager[]{
        new X509TrustManager() {
            public void checkClientTrusted(final X509Certificate[] certs, final String authType) {

            }

            public void checkServerTrusted(final X509Certificate[] certs, final String authType) {

            }

            public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
                return null;
            }
        }
    };

    private TrustManager[] getTrustManager() {
        return TRUST_ALL_CERTS;
    }

    public Socket createSocket(final String host, final int port, final InetAddress clientHost,
                               final int clientPort) throws IOException {
        return getSocketFactory().createSocket(host, port, clientHost, clientPort);
    }

    @Override
    public Socket createSocket(final String host, final int port, final InetAddress localAddress,
                               final int localPort, final HttpConnectionParams params) throws IOException {
        return createSocket(host, port);
    }

    public Socket createSocket(final String host, final int port) throws IOException {
        return getSocketFactory().createSocket(host, port);
    }

    private SocketFactory getSocketFactory() throws UnknownHostException {
        TrustManager[] trustAllCerts = getTrustManager();

        try {
            SSLContext context = SSLContext.getInstance("SSL");
            context.init(null, trustAllCerts, new SecureRandom());

            final SSLSocketFactory socketFactory = context.getSocketFactory();
            HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(socketFactory);
            return socketFactory;
        } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException | KeyManagementException exception) {
            throw new UnknownHostException(exception.getMessage());
        }
    }
}

Note: This is with HttpClient 3.1 and Java 8

Answer 3

The Apache HttpClient 4.5 way:

org.apache.http.ssl.SSLContextBuilder sslContextBuilder = SSLContextBuilder.create();
sslContextBuilder.loadTrustMaterial(new org.apache.http.conn.ssl.TrustSelfSignedStrategy());
SSLContext sslContext = sslContextBuilder.build();
org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslSocketFactory =
        new SSLConnectionSocketFactory(sslContext, new org.apache.http.conn.ssl.DefaultHostnameVerifier());

HttpClientBuilder httpClientBuilder = HttpClients.custom().setSSLSocketFactory(sslSocketFactory);
httpClient = httpClientBuilder.build();

NOTE: org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLContextBuilder is deprecated and org.apache.http.ssl.SSLContextBuilder is the new one (notice conn missing from the latter's package name).

Answer 4

From http://hc.apache.org/httpclient-3.x/sslguide.html:

Protocol.registerProtocol("https", 
new Protocol("https", new MySSLSocketFactory(), 443));
HttpClient httpclient = new HttpClient();
GetMethod httpget = new GetMethod("https://www.whatever.com/");
try {
  httpclient.executeMethod(httpget);
      System.out.println(httpget.getStatusLine());
} finally {
      httpget.releaseConnection();
}

Where MySSLSocketFactory example can be found here. It references a TrustManager, which you can modify to trust everything (although you must consider this!)

Answer 5

Using the InstallCert to generate the jssecacerts file and do -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=/path/to/jssecacerts worked great.

Answer 6

https://mms.nw.ru uses a self-signed certificate which obviously isn't contained in the default set of trust managers.

You'll need to one of the following:

• Configure the SSLContext with a TrustManager that accepts any cert (see below)

• Configure the SSLContext with an appropriate trust store that includes your cert

• Add the cert for that site to the default java trust store.

Here is a sample program that creates a (mostly worthless) SSL Context that accepts any cert:

import java.net.URL;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.security.cert.CertificateException;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;
import javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier;
import javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection;
import javax.net.ssl.KeyManager;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSession;
import javax.net.ssl.TrustManager;
import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager;

public class SSLTest {

    public static void main(String [] args) throws Exception {
        // configure the SSLContext with a TrustManager
        SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
        ctx.init(new KeyManager[0], new TrustManager[] {new DefaultTrustManager()}, new SecureRandom());
        SSLContext.setDefault(ctx);

        URL url = new URL("https://mms.nw.ru");
        HttpsURLConnection conn = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        conn.setHostnameVerifier(new HostnameVerifier() {
            @Override
            public boolean verify(String arg0, SSLSession arg1) {
                return true;
            }
        });
        System.out.println(conn.getResponseCode());
        conn.disconnect();
    }

    private static class DefaultTrustManager implements X509TrustManager {

        @Override
        public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] arg0, String arg1) throws CertificateException {}

        @Override
        public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] arg0, String arg1) throws CertificateException {}

        @Override
        public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
            return null;
        }
    }
}