Java HttpsURLConnection and TLS 1.2

Question

I read in an article that HttpsURLConnection will transparently negotiate the SSL connection.

The official document says:

This class uses HostnameVerifier and SSLSocketFactory. There are default implementations defined for both classes. ^[1]

Does that mean once you open a connection with

httpsCon = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();

It is already SSL/TLS encrypted without any more hassle?

How can I view and set the TLS version for the standard implementation? (Should be TLS 1.2 for Java 8 and TLS 1.0 for Java 7)

References

1. Oracle Corp. (2011). javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection. (JavaDoc)

Answer 1

You will have to create an SSLContext to set the Protocoll:

in Java 1.8:

 SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2");
 // Init the SSLContext with a TrustManager[] and SecureRandom()
 sc.init(null, trustCerts, new java.security.SecureRandom()); 

in Java 1.7:

 SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1");
 // Init the SSLContext with a TrustManager[] and SecureRandom()
 sc.init(null, trustCerts, new java.security.SecureRandom());

then you just have to set the SSLContext to the HttpsURLConnection:

httpsCon.setSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());

That should do the Trick.

Answer 2

You can also set TLS 1.2 protocol with the JDK 1.7. By default JDK 1.7 will set it to 1.0.

SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2"); //$NON-NLS-1$
sc.init(null, null, new java.security.SecureRandom());
HttpsURLConnection con = (HttpsURLConnection) httpsURL.openConnection();
con.setSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());

Answer 3

private static javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory getFactorySimple() 
        throws Exception {
    SSLContext context = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2");`

    context.init(null, null, null);

    return context.getSocketFactory();

}

String loginurl ="some url";
HttpsURLConnection connection = null;
URL url = new URL(loginURL);

connection = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();

javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory sslSocketFactory =getFactorySimple();

connection.setSSLSocketFactory(sslSocketFactory);

The above code can be used to enable tls 1.1 or tls 1.2 in java 1.7