Java client certificates over HTTPS/SSL

Question

I am using Java 6 and am trying to create an HttpsURLConnection against a remote server, using a client certificate.
The server is using an selfsigned root

Answer 1

I think you have an issue with your server certificate, is not a valid certificate (I think this is what "handshake_failure" means in this case):

Import your server certificate into your trustcacerts keystore on client's JRE. This is easily done with keytool:

keytool
    -import
    -alias 
    -file 
    -keystore /lib/security/cacerts