Please note: this post focuses on the Apache HttpClient library. If you're using plain java, please see
this post.
When developing a https application, your test server often doesn't have a (valid) SSL certificate. This will cause the following exception to be thrown when connecting your client to the test server: "javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticated".
I will be discussing a way to fix this issue with the apache HttpClient, version 4.0.1 (
http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client/).
1. Bits and pieces
You usually create your HttpClient like this:
client = new DefaultHttpClient();
We will need to tell the client to use a different TrustManager. A TrustManager (
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17476_01/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/javax/net/ssl/TrustManager.html) is a class that checks if given credentials (or certificates) are valid. The scheme used by SSL is called X.509 (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.509), and Java has a specific TrustManager for this scheme, called X509TrustManager. First thing we will need to do is create such a TrustManager:
X509TrustManager tm = new X509TrustManager() {
public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] xcs, String string) throws CertificateException {
}
public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] xcs, String string) throws CertificateException {
}
public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
return null;
}
};
As you can see, this code doesn't do much: if a certificate is invalid the TrustManager is supposed to throw a CertificateException in the checkXXX methods. Since we always want to accept all certificates, we never throw an exception.
Next we need to find a way to set this TrustManager in our HttpClient. The TrustManager is used by the SSL sockets. Sockets are created using a SocketFactory. For SSL sockets this is an SSLSocketFactory (
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17476_01/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/javax/net/ssl/SSLSocketFactory.html). When creating a new SSLSocketFactory, you need to pass an SSLContext to the constructor. It is this SSLContext that will contain our newly created TrustManager.
First thing we need to do is get an SSLContext:
SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
TLS is the successor to SSL, but they use the same SSLContext.
Then we initialize this context with our new TrustManager that we created above:
ctx.init(null, new TrustManager[]{tm}, null);
We can then finally create our SSLSocketFactory:
SSLSocketFactory ssf = new SSLSocketFactory(ctx);
Now we still need to register this SSLSocketFactory with our HttpClient. This is done in the SchemeRegistry of the ConnectionManager of the HttpClient:
ClientConnectionManager ccm = base.getConnectionManager();
SchemeRegistry sr = ccm.getSchemeRegistry();
sr.register(new Scheme("https", ssf, 443));
We register a new Scheme, with the protocol https, our newly created SSLSocketFactory which contains our TrustManager and we tell the HttpClient that the default port for https is port 443.
2. Putting it all together
The following class takes a HttpClient and returns a new HttpClient that accepts any SSL certificate:
/*
This code is public domain: you are free to use, link and/or modify it in any way you want, for all purposes including commercial applications.
*/
public class WebClientDevWrapper {
public static HttpClient wrapClient(HttpClient base) {
try {
SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
X509TrustManager tm = new X509TrustManager() {
public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] xcs, String string) throws CertificateException {
}
public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] xcs, String string) throws CertificateException {
}
public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
return null;
}
};
ctx.init(null, new TrustManager[]{tm}, null);
SSLSocketFactory ssf = new SSLSocketFactory(ctx);
ssf.setHostnameVerifier(SSLSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER);
ClientConnectionManager ccm = base.getConnectionManager();
SchemeRegistry sr = ccm.getSchemeRegistry();
sr.register(new Scheme("https", ssf, 443));
return new DefaultHttpClient(ccm, base.getParams());
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
}
}
You can then do something like this in the code that creates the HttpClient:
this.client = new DefaultHttpClient();
if(dev) {
this.client = WebClientDevWrapper.wrapClient(client);
}
Update
In some exceptional cases, the method described above doesn't work. This is due to the Apache
AllowAllHostnameVerifier still being to strict. In this case, you will need your own
X509HostnameVerifier. Create it as follows:
X509HostnameVerifier verifier = new X509HostnameVerifier() {
@Override
public void verify(String string, SSLSocket ssls) throws IOException {
}
@Override
public void verify(String string, X509Certificate xc) throws SSLException {
}
@Override
public void verify(String string, String[] strings, String[] strings1) throws SSLException {
}
@Override
public boolean verify(String string, SSLSession ssls) {
return true;
}
};
Then set it on your socket factory:
ssf.setHostnameVerifier(verifier);
If we put everything together, the new code looks like this:
/*
This code is public domain: you are free to use, link and/or modify it in any way you want, for all purposes including commercial applications.
*/
public class WebClientDevWrapper {
public static HttpClient wrapClient(HttpClient base) {
try {
SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
X509TrustManager tm = new X509TrustManager() {
public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] xcs, String string) throws CertificateException {
}
public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] xcs, String string) throws CertificateException {
}
public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
return null;
}
};
X509HostnameVerifier verifier = new X509HostnameVerifier() {
@Override
public void verify(String string, SSLSocket ssls) throws IOException {
}
@Override
public void verify(String string, X509Certificate xc) throws SSLException {
}
@Override
public void verify(String string, String[] strings, String[] strings1) throws SSLException {
}
@Override
public boolean verify(String string, SSLSession ssls) {
return true;
}
};
ctx.init(null, new TrustManager[]{tm}, null);
SSLSocketFactory ssf = new SSLSocketFactory(ctx);
ssf.setHostnameVerifier(verifier);
ClientConnectionManager ccm = base.getConnectionManager();
SchemeRegistry sr = ccm.getSchemeRegistry();
sr.register(new Scheme("https", ssf, 443));
return new DefaultHttpClient(ccm, base.getParams());
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
}
}
You can then do something like this in the code that creates the HttpClient:
this.client = new DefaultHttpClient();
if(dev) {
this.client = WebClientDevWrapper.wrapClient(client);
}
