Mutual Authentication with x509 Certificates using HttpClient 4.0.1

Question

Does anyone have any friendly tips on how to perform client authentication via an x509 certificate using HTTPClient 4.0.1?

Answer 1

I used the following from a sample code on HttpClient's website (custom SSL context if I remember correctly).

{
    KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance("PKCS12"); //client certificate holder
    FileInputStream instream = new FileInputStream(new File(
            "client-p12-keystore.p12"));
    try {
        trustStore.load(instream, "password".toCharArray());
    } finally {
        instream.close();
    }

    // Trust own CA and all self-signed certs
    SSLContext sslcontext = SSLContexts.custom()
            .loadKeyMaterial(keyStore, "password".toCharArray())
            // .loadTrustMaterial(trustStore, new TrustSelfSignedStrategy()) //if you have a trust store
            .build();
    // Allow TLSv1 protocol only
    SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslsf = new SSLConnectionSocketFactory(
            sslcontext, new String[] { "TLSv1" }, null,
            SSLConnectionSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER);
    CloseableHttpClient httpclient = HttpClients
            .custom()
            .setHostnameVerifier(
                    SSLConnectionSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER) //todo
            .setSSLSocketFactory(sslsf).build();
    try {

        HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("https://localhost:8443/secure/index");

        System.out.println("executing request" + httpget.getRequestLine());

        CloseableHttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
        try {
            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

            System.out.println("----------------------------------------");
            System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());
            if (entity != null) {
                System.out.println("Response content length: "
                        + entity.getContentLength());
            }
            EntityUtils.consume(entity);
        } finally {
            response.close();
        }
    } finally {
        httpclient.close();
    }
}

Answer 2

Another solution (copied from another example). I've used the same keystore for both 'trusting' (trustStore) and for authenticate myself (keyStore).

 KeyStore trustStore  = KeyStore.getInstance(KeyStore.getDefaultType());
 FileInputStream instream = new FileInputStream(new File("miller.keystore"));
 try {
     trustStore.load(instream, "pw".toCharArray());
 } finally {
     instream.close();
 }

 SSLContext sslcontext = SSLContexts.custom()
         .loadTrustMaterial(trustStore) /* this key store must contain the certs needed & trusted to verify the servers cert */
         .loadKeyMaterial(trustStore, "pw".toCharArray()) /* this keystore must contain the key/cert of the client */
         .build();

 SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslsf = new SSLConnectionSocketFactory(sslcontext,
         SSLConnectionSocketFactory.BROWSER_COMPATIBLE_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER);
 CloseableHttpClient httpclient = HttpClients.custom()
         .setSSLSocketFactory(sslsf)
         .build();
 try {

     HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("https://localhost");

     System.out.println("executing request" + httpget.getRequestLine());

     CloseableHttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
     try {
         HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

         System.out.println("----------------------------------------");
         System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());
         if (entity != null) {
             System.out.println("Response content length: " + entity.getContentLength());
         }
         EntityUtils.consume(entity);
     } finally {
         response.close();
     }
 } finally {
     httpclient.close();
 }

Answer 3

Here is some code to get you going. The KeyStore is the object that contains the client certificate. If the server is using a self-signed certificate or a certificate that isn't signed by a CA as recognized by the JVM in the included cacerts file then you will need to use a TrustStore. Otherwise to use the default cacerts file, pass in null to SSLSockeFactory for the truststore argument..

import org.apache.http.conn.scheme.Scheme;
import org.apache.http.conn.scheme.SchemeRegistry;
import org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.impl.conn.tsccm.ThreadSafeClientConnManager;
import org.apache.http.params.BasicHttpParams;
import org.apache.http.params.HttpParams;

...

final HttpParams httpParams = new BasicHttpParams();

// load the keystore containing the client certificate - keystore type is probably jks or pkcs12
final KeyStore keystore = KeyStore.getInstance("pkcs12");
InputStream keystoreInput = null;
// TODO get the keystore as an InputStream from somewhere
keystore.load(keystoreInput, "keystorepassword".toCharArray());

// load the trustore, leave it null to rely on cacerts distributed with the JVM - truststore type is probably jks or pkcs12
KeyStore truststore = KeyStore.getInstance("pkcs12");
InputStream truststoreInput = null;
// TODO get the trustore as an InputStream from somewhere
truststore.load(truststoreInput, "truststorepassword".toCharArray());

final SchemeRegistry schemeRegistry = new SchemeRegistry();
schemeRegistry.register(new Scheme("https", new SSLSocketFactory(keystore, keystorePassword, truststore), 443));

final DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(new ThreadSafeClientConnManager(httpParams, schemeRegistry), httpParams);