Simple Java HTTPS server

Question

I need to setup a really lightweight HTTPS server for a Java application. It's a simulator that's being used in our development labs to simulate the HTTPS connections accepted by a piece of equipment in the wild. Because it's purely a lightweight development tool and isn't used in production in any way at all I'm quite happy to bypass certifications and as much negotiation as I can.

I'm planning on using the HttpsServer class in Java 6 SE but I'm struggling to get it working. As a test client I'm using wget from the cygwin command line (wget https://[address]:[port]) but wget reports that it was "Unable to establish SSL connection".

If I run wget with the -d option for debugging it tells me "SSL handshake failed".

I've spent 30 minutes googling this and everything seems to just point back to the fairly useless Java6 documentation that describes the methods but doesn't actually talk about how to get the darn thing talking or provide any example code at all.

Can anyone nudge me in the right direction?

Answer 1

What I eventually used was this:

try
{
    // setup the socket address
    InetSocketAddress address = new InetSocketAddress ( InetAddress.getLocalHost (), config.getHttpsPort () );

    // initialise the HTTPS server
    HttpsServer httpsServer = HttpsServer.create ( address, 0 );
    SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance ( "TLS" );

    // initialise the keystore
    char[] password = "simulator".toCharArray ();
    KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance ( "JKS" );
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream ( "lig.keystore" );
    ks.load ( fis, password );

    // setup the key manager factory
    KeyManagerFactory kmf = KeyManagerFactory.getInstance ( "SunX509" );
    kmf.init ( ks, password );

    // setup the trust manager factory
    TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance ( "SunX509" );
    tmf.init ( ks );

    // setup the HTTPS context and parameters
    sslContext.init ( kmf.getKeyManagers (), tmf.getTrustManagers (), null );
    httpsServer.setHttpsConfigurator ( new HttpsConfigurator( sslContext )
    {
        public void configure ( HttpsParameters params )
        {
            try
            {
                // initialise the SSL context
                SSLContext c = SSLContext.getDefault ();
                SSLEngine engine = c.createSSLEngine ();
                params.setNeedClientAuth ( false );
                params.setCipherSuites ( engine.getEnabledCipherSuites () );
                params.setProtocols ( engine.getEnabledProtocols () );

                // get the default parameters
                SSLParameters defaultSSLParameters = c.getDefaultSSLParameters ();
                params.setSSLParameters ( defaultSSLParameters );
            }
            catch ( Exception ex )
            {
                ILogger log = new LoggerFactory ().getLogger ();
                log.exception ( ex );
                log.error ( "Failed to create HTTPS port" );
            }
        }
    } );
    LigServer server = new LigServer ( httpsServer );
    joinableThreadList.add ( server.getJoinableThread () );
}
catch ( Exception exception )
{
    log.exception ( exception );
    log.error ( "Failed to create HTTPS server on port " + config.getHttpsPort () + " of localhost" );
}

To generate a keystore:

$ keytool -genkey -alias alias -keypass simulator \
  -keystore lig.keystore -storepass simulator

See also here.

Potentially storepass and keypass might be different, in which case the ks.load and kmf.init must use storepass and keypass, respectively.

Answer 2

Just a reminder to others: com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpsServer in the solutions above is not part of the Java standard, but is proprietary and bundled only with the Sun/Oracle JVM, so this will not work on any other Java runtime.

There are several lightweight HTTP servers out there that you can embed in your application that support HTTPS and run on any JVM.

One of them is JLHTTP - The Java Lightweight HTTP Server which is a tiny one-file server (or ~50K/35K jar) with no dependencies. Setting up the keystore, SSLContext etc. is similar to the above, since it also relies on the standard JSSE implementation, or you can specify the standard system properties to configure SSL. You can see the FAQ or the code and its documentation for details.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of JLHTTP. You can check it out for yourself and determine if it suits your needs. I hope you find it useful :-)

Answer 3

I updated your answer for a https server(not socket based),It might help with CSRF and AJAX Call

import java.io.*;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
import java.lang.*;
import java.net.URL;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpsServer;
import java.security.KeyStore;
import javax.net.ssl.KeyManagerFactory;
import javax.net.ssl.TrustManagerFactory;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.*;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngine;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLParameters;

import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.Reader;
import java.net.URLConnection;

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

import java.net.InetAddress;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpExchange;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpHandler;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpsExchange;

public class SimpleHTTPSServer {

    public static class MyHandler implements HttpHandler {
        @Override
        public void handle(HttpExchange t) throws IOException {
            String response = "This is the response";
            HttpsExchange httpsExchange = (HttpsExchange) t;
            t.getResponseHeaders().add("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
            t.sendResponseHeaders(200, response.getBytes().length);
            OutputStream os = t.getResponseBody();
            os.write(response.getBytes());
            os.close();
        }
    }

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        try {
            // setup the socket address
            InetSocketAddress address = new InetSocketAddress(8000);

            // initialise the HTTPS server
            HttpsServer httpsServer = HttpsServer.create(address, 0);
            SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");

            // initialise the keystore
            char[] password = "password".toCharArray();
            KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance("JKS");
            FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("testkey.jks");
            ks.load(fis, password);

            // setup the key manager factory
            KeyManagerFactory kmf = KeyManagerFactory.getInstance("SunX509");
            kmf.init(ks, password);

            // setup the trust manager factory
            TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance("SunX509");
            tmf.init(ks);

            // setup the HTTPS context and parameters
            sslContext.init(kmf.getKeyManagers(), tmf.getTrustManagers(), null);
            httpsServer.setHttpsConfigurator(new HttpsConfigurator(sslContext) {
                public void configure(HttpsParameters params) {
                    try {
                        // initialise the SSL context
                        SSLContext c = getSSLContext();
                        SSLEngine engine = c.createSSLEngine();
                        params.setNeedClientAuth(false);
                        params.setCipherSuites(engine.getEnabledCipherSuites());
                        params.setProtocols(engine.getEnabledProtocols());

                        // Set the SSL parameters
                        SSLParameters sslParameters = context.getSupportedSSLParameters();
                        params.setSSLParameters(sslParameters);

                    } catch (Exception ex) {
                        System.out.println("Failed to create HTTPS port");
                    }
                }
            });
            httpsServer.createContext("/test", new MyHandler());
            httpsServer.setExecutor(null); // creates a default executor
            httpsServer.start();

        } catch (Exception exception) {
            System.out.println("Failed to create HTTPS server on port " + 8000 + " of localhost");
            exception.printStackTrace();

        }
    }

}

To create a self-signed certificate

keytool -genkey -keyalg RSA -alias selfsigned -keystore testkey.jks -storepass password -validity 360 -keysize 2048