how to download file over ssl (https) on android

Question

I have an app that is working using the code below for http, however for security reasons this is being changed to https, but this causes the download to fail. I tried just changing the httpURLConnection to httpsURLConnection however this did not work.

try {

    FileOutputStream f = new FileOutputStream(directory);
    URL u = new URL(fileURL);
    HttpURLConnection c = (HttpURLConnection) u.openConnection();
    c.setRequestMethod("GET");
    c.setDoOutput(true);
    c.connect();

    InputStream in = c.getInputStream();

    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
    int len1 = 0 
    while ((len1 = in.read(buffer)) > 0) {
        f.write(buffer, 0, len1);
        Log.d("downloader","downloading");
    }

    f.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        Log.d("downloader", "catch");
    }

there are no particular passwords or anything needed to connect from my computer and in fact if I go to the browser on the android phone and type in the HTTPS URL in question it loads it fine... I just cant figure out how to do it in my app.

I have virtually no experience with security or certificates or any of that so I am not even sure what is needed here or where to look.

Thanks

Answer 1

Have a look at the HTTPS and SSL Article within the Android documentation. They have an simple example in there, given your HTTPS certificate is signed by a trusted CA (as you write that you're able to use the server with a browser you have such a signed certificate):

URL url = new URL("https://wikipedia.org");
URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection();
InputStream in = urlConnection.getInputStream();
copyInputStreamToOutputStream(in, System.out);