technology

Enabling SSL on a Tomcat “devl” machine (Windows)

Posted on by Sreekumar Kj

These are the steps involved to enable SSL on Tomcat on developer machine for test purposes.

1. Create a certificate key store

Run this command in the command prompt –

%JAVA_HOME%\bin\keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

An interactive console based program is launched –

  1. When asked for a password, provide one and confirm the same.
  2. The program then prompts for your first name and last name; here, enter the name of the host machine. eg. testserver1. (Do NO T enter the IP of the host here.)
  3. Provide proper values for further prompts like Company Name, State etc.
  4. Press enter when prompted for a tomcat password.

This will create a key repository file .keystore in the home folder of the (windows) user.

2. Edit the Server.xml (in [catalina-home]/conf)

1. Uncomment the node <Connector port=”8443″……/>.

2. Edit/Add the following attributes (colored) to the above node –

protocol=”org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol” SSLEnabled=”true” keystoreFile=”${user.home}/.keystore” keystorePass=”[the-password-you-provided]” maxThreads=”150″ scheme=”https” secure=”true” clientAuth=”false” sslProtocol=”TLS” />

3. Start tomcat. Run an application using  URL “http: //[ hostname]:8443/[appname]”.

4. The browser probably shows an “Untrusted Certificate” warning – Ignore and proceed.

Following are additional steps required to enable java based HTTP-clients  talk to this newly created secured server .

3. Install the Host Certificate as Trusted

  1. Download and unzip this file to desktop.
  2. In the folder InstallCert run this in command prompt – 
     java -cp . InstallCert [above-host-name]:8443
  3. When done, the program creates a file “jssecacerts” in the same folder. Copy this file to folder (java-home)/jre/lib/security.

Done !

You should now  be able to run services requiring sercured connection on this host like CAS server and clients.
Sreekumar Kj
Sreekumar (KJ) has been a hobby programmer from school days. Codemarvels is his personal blog from the year 2010, where he writes about technology, philosophy, society and a bit about physics. He now runs a conversational AI company - DheeYantra - focusing his efforts to help businesses improve operational efficiency using digital employees powered by AI.