Accept server's self-signed ssl certificate in Java client

Question

It looks like a standard question, but I couldn\'t find clear directions anywhere.

I have java code trying to connect to a server with probably self-signed (or expir

Answer 1

The accepted answer needs an Option 3

ALSO Option 2 is TERRIBLE. It should NEVER be used (esp. in production) since it provides a FALSE sense of security. Just use HTTP instead of Option 2.

OPTION 3

Use the self-signed certificate to make the Https connection.

Here is an example:

import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory;
import javax.net.ssl.TrustManagerFactory;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.URL;
import java.security.KeyManagementException;
import java.security.KeyStoreException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.cert.Certificate;
import java.security.cert.CertificateException;
import java.security.cert.CertificateFactory;
import java.security.KeyStore;

/*
 * Use a SSLSocket to send a HTTP GET request and read the response from an HTTPS server.
 * It assumes that the client is not behind a proxy/firewall
 */

public class SSLSocketClientCert
{
    private static final String[] useProtocols = new String[] {"TLSv1.2"};
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
    {
        URL inputUrl = null;
        String certFile = null;
        if(args.length < 1)
        {
            System.out.println("Usage: " + SSLSocketClient.class.getName() + " ");
            System.exit(1);
        }
        if(args.length == 1)
        {
            inputUrl = new URL(args[0]);
        }
        else
        {
            inputUrl = new URL(args[0]);
            certFile = args[1];
        }
        SSLSocket sslSocket = null;
        PrintWriter outWriter = null;
        BufferedReader inReader = null;
        try
        {
            SSLSocketFactory sslSocketFactory = getSSLSocketFactory(certFile);

            sslSocket = (SSLSocket) sslSocketFactory.createSocket(inputUrl.getHost(), inputUrl.getPort() == -1 ? inputUrl.getDefaultPort() : inputUrl.getPort());
            String[] enabledProtocols = sslSocket.getEnabledProtocols();
            System.out.println("Enabled Protocols: ");
            for(String enabledProtocol : enabledProtocols) System.out.println("\t" + enabledProtocol);

            String[] supportedProtocols = sslSocket.getSupportedProtocols();
            System.out.println("Supported Protocols: ");
            for(String supportedProtocol : supportedProtocols) System.out.println("\t" + supportedProtocol + ", ");

            sslSocket.setEnabledProtocols(useProtocols);

            /*
             * Before any data transmission, the SSL socket needs to do an SSL handshake.
             * We manually initiate the handshake so that we can see/catch any SSLExceptions.
             * The handshake would automatically  be initiated by writing & flushing data but
             * then the PrintWriter would catch all IOExceptions (including SSLExceptions),
             * set an internal error flag, and then return without rethrowing the exception.
             *
             * This means any error messages are lost, which causes problems here because
             * the only way to tell there was an error is to call PrintWriter.checkError().
             */
            sslSocket.startHandshake();
            outWriter = sendRequest(sslSocket, inputUrl);
            readResponse(sslSocket);
            closeAll(sslSocket, outWriter, inReader);
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        finally
        {
            closeAll(sslSocket, outWriter, inReader);
        }
    }

    private static PrintWriter sendRequest(SSLSocket sslSocket, URL inputUrl) throws IOException
    {
        PrintWriter outWriter = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(sslSocket.getOutputStream())));
        outWriter.println("GET " + inputUrl.getPath() + " HTTP/1.1");
        outWriter.println("Host: " + inputUrl.getHost());
        outWriter.println("Connection: Close");
        outWriter.println();
        outWriter.flush();
        if(outWriter.checkError())        // Check for any PrintWriter errors
            System.out.println("SSLSocketClient: PrintWriter error");
        return outWriter;
    }

    private static void readResponse(SSLSocket sslSocket) throws IOException
    {
        BufferedReader inReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(sslSocket.getInputStream()));
        String inputLine;
        while((inputLine = inReader.readLine()) != null)
            System.out.println(inputLine);
    }

    // Terminate all streams
    private static void closeAll(SSLSocket sslSocket, PrintWriter outWriter, BufferedReader inReader) throws IOException
    {
        if(sslSocket != null) sslSocket.close();
        if(outWriter != null) outWriter.close();
        if(inReader != null) inReader.close();
    }

    // Create an SSLSocketFactory based on the certificate if it is available, otherwise use the JVM default certs
    public static SSLSocketFactory getSSLSocketFactory(String certFile)
        throws CertificateException, KeyStoreException, IOException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, KeyManagementException
    {
        if (certFile == null) return (SSLSocketFactory) SSLSocketFactory.getDefault();
        Certificate certificate = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509").generateCertificate(new FileInputStream(new File(certFile)));

        KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance(KeyStore.getDefaultType());
        keyStore.load(null, null);
        keyStore.setCertificateEntry("server", certificate);

        TrustManagerFactory trustManagerFactory = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm());
        trustManagerFactory.init(keyStore);

        SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
        sslContext.init(null, trustManagerFactory.getTrustManagers(), null);

        return sslContext.getSocketFactory();
    }
}