Is it possible to send a HTTPS POST request to a server that you only have the public key to (and not the whole certificate - obviously not talking about the private key here)?
Here is my setup. Both Server and client are developed and controlled by me.
HTTPS Server
has untrusted root certificate for https (from ZeroSSL, 90 days expiration)
Java Client (on github - open source)
has to send a file over an https connection
the app is downloaded by random people with varying technical knowledge (manual file imports for java key storage - as I've seen them in many stackoverfow posts - are not an option)
the client app runns more than 90 days (hardcoding certificates is not an option, but the server's public key should stay the same after a renewal, which would make hardcoding this one in possible)
I want this to be as secure as possible (trusting all certificates is also not an option)
Now i've seen one person talk about "pinning the server's public key" in a comment. Does anyone know more about how to do that? It sounds exactly like the thing I'm looking for.
UPDATE 1: This site https://whatsmychaincert.com/ fixed at least a problem I had with my certificate not being installed properly, where firefox was fine with it, but ZeroSSL told me it wasn't properly installed. What that site did was to create a chained.crt file that basically consists out of the content from certificate.crt and the ca_bundle.crt combined (copypasted one and then the other file content with a line break in between). This file i then put instead of the certificate file in the node-red settings.js.
/** Option 1: static object */
https: {
key: require("fs").readFileSync('private.key'),
cert: require("fs").readFileSync('chained.crt')
},
It made things better but let's see if it also fixed my main problem...
Related
I am quite new to working with certificates and security, so pardon me if this is a no-brainer to others. I have followed this guide to set up my Grails application to run on HTTPS with self-signed certificates.
I am trying to establish 2-way SSL with another HTTPS network (a Nifi standalone instance) running on the same machine. I can get the Nifi instance to talk to Grails over HTTPS, but I am having issues with Grails talking to Nifi (specifically to a ListenHTTP processor).
I was hoping someone could advise how to use certificate authentication in Grails when posting over HTTPS.
Nifi uses certificate authentication; however per the above guide Grails only specifies a single keystore (for receiving requests?) so I'm a bit thrown off. I can successfully CURL to Nifi's REST API by specifying the --cert and --key properties, but since the final product will be a WAR on a client machine I want to set this up the 'right way', and I believe leaving those files on the client machine is a really big no-no for security.
During early development RestBuilder was sufficient for 2-way comms over HTTP, however, I am unable to find any mention of using it with certificate authentication (only basic authentication is covered in the documentation?).
HTTPBuilder shows up a lot when I looked for alternatives, however looking at the relevant documentation (line 139 'certificate()') it states that it takes a whole keystore JKS and password. I think this is close but not quite what I am looking for considering I only have one keystore; I am open to correction here.
Please note that I will be unavailable to respond until at least the day after this question was posted.
When making an outgoing HTTPS connection, if the remote endpoint (in this case Apache NiFi) requires client certificate authentication, the originating endpoint (Grails) will attempt to provide a certificate. The certificate that Grails is using to identify itself as a service is fine to use in this scenario, provided:
The certificate either does not have the ExtendedKeyUsage extension set, or if it is set, both ServerAuth and ClientAuth values are present. If ClientAuth is missing, the system will not allow this certificate to be used for client authentication, which is the necessary role in this exchange.
The certificate has a valid SubjectAlternativeName value which matches the hostname it is running on. RFC 6125 prescribes that SAN values should be used for certificate identity rather than Distinguished Name (DN) and Common Name (CN). So if the Grails app is running on https://grails.example.com, the SAN must contain values for grails.example.com or *.example.com.
The certificate must be imported into NiFi's truststore in order to allow NiFi to authenticate a presenter of this certificate.
NiFi must have ACL permissions in place for this "user". This can be done through the UI or by modifying the conf/authorizers.xml file before starting NiFi for the first time. See NiFi Admin Guide - Authorizers Configuration for more information.
Your concern for leaving the cert.pem and key.key files on the client machine is understandable, but the sensitive information contained therein is the same data that's in your keystore. At some point, the private key must be accessible by the Grails app in order to perform HTTPS processes, so having it in the keystore is functionally equivalent (you don't mention having a password on the *.key file, but obviously you should have a password on the keystore).
I have a certificate which i need to pass along with the SOAP Request in JMeter.
I have edited the system.properites file to add
javax.net.ssl.keyStore= path to keystore file
javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=password
I am still getting the error You need valid client certificate from DHW to access page.
Am I missing somethig here?
The same request is working well from SOAP_UI.
There is a lot that can be going wrong here.
Here is my guess though...
The server is most likely setup for mutual authentication. You can test this by running your java client with the following system property: -Djavax.net.debug=ssl
You should see the ssl handshake and see if the server is requesting a client certificate or not. The messaging will be VERY verbose and you will have to diligently look though the log output to see what is actually occurring.
Hopefully, in the output you will see a list of Certificate Authorities (CAs) that the server trusts. Your client's certificate MUST be signed by one of these CAs. If not, the client won't even attempt to send its client certificate.
If you have access to the server, you can create your own CA and then sign the clients certificate with that new CA and that will work. I actually just did that yesterday. :D
The issue is resolved. I was giving only single backspace instead of two backspaces as per java conventions. It works fine with this minor modification.
After a server change, I get nasty SSL warning in browsers (tested FF & Chrome), when loading an applet, used in an JavaEE Application (Serlvet API 3)
The warning says: "Certificate is not valid, and cannot used to identify the website"
The more detailed warning says: "The certificate authority, who provided the certificate, is not trusted." The messages are translated into english, so please excuse slight differences there. After this message, I get the message of Java, which shows that the Applet is ordinary signed (the dialog with the blue sign). So the Applet is working, only the warning message annoys.
Before I moved to another server, everything was fine and worked. No security warnings or anything else. The Applet is signed, by a certificate, which I requested from an CA. (rapidssl)
The old server environment was just a common web space, offered by 3rd party hoster. Now I moved to my own server, which utilizes XEN for hosting VMs. On one of that internal vm's, our webserver is deployed. According to that, I defined firewall rules to route traffic http/https to the vms.
Also the domain was ported, was purchased at old hoster, and the ip of new server is bound to domain.
I use Tomcat 7 as Application Server on an debian based OS.
In old environment, I could use the specified url in CN of my wildcard cert.(e.g. *.domain.com)
In new environment the basic message says: *.domain.com:port is not a trusted site.
I thought actually, that SSL Certs are independent of the used port. I've read that, on some research too. I also searched here in many threads, but the supposed answers didnt work for me.
The certificate and root cert. are imported to Java's own keystore cacerts. In Tomcat 7, I use the JSSE Implementation for SSL, with properly setup keystore files.
I've tried already this, but as im not that experienced with SSL/TLS Technology, the tried solutions maybe even wont solve my problem:
Disabling SNI in Tomcat 7 (dont work)
Adding Host aliases in server.xml (dont work)
Can anyone clarify, what the actual problem is, or has experienced the same issue ?
#edit: The are no error stacktraces in any logs, which I could provide here, also no exceptions gets thrown.
It came clear, thanks to Khanna111 Gaurav Khanna and jwv, that the certificate chain wasnt setup properly. I thought, if there were any problems with the certificate chain, that the browser will notify me about it. It isn't like that.
As we migrated from old hoster to new server, they provided only the certificates, but without the private key.
As im not that much experinced with SSL, I thought that importing the intermediary certs and the acquired cert is enough.. It is not :)
After stumbling on
intermediate-ca-certificate-in-java (link in comment), I've read this, which solved my problem: why doesn't java send the client certificate during SSL handshake? & external website:Import private key and certificate into Java Key Store (JKS)
I had certkey.key,publiccert.crt, intermediate_primary.cer and secondary_primary.cer Files.
The first step was, to convert the .key and .crt file to DER format, as mentioned in last link
via OpenSSL due to keytool's inability to import a key in an existing keystore
After converting to DER Format, I used the Tool ImportKey and created a new keystore with key/cert contained.
The second step was following the instructions of second link (Bruno's Answer), so it was copy&paste the certificate contents, into a single file. After importing the bundle of certificates into keystore, everything was fine.
I hope this can help anyone else, which is also not that familiar with SSL.
p.s. due to my lack of rep, i cannot mention all sites, I've used.. I'll provide them in comments
I have a Java web app that has been running fine for several months. It integrates with the Box API (https://upload.box.com/api/2.0) to save files to the cloud service. Out of the blue, we started receiving the dreaded javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticated exception while trying to make a REST API call to the Box web service.
There are tons of posts out there that tell you how to manually import the cert into your key store using the keytool utility. I understand that I can do this to fix the problem. But is this really the correct fix?
The fact that my application has been running fine for months leads me to believe something in the certificate at https://upload.box.com changed. Looking at the cert in my web browser, the certificate seems valid and was only renewed a few weeks ago. What is missing from my keystore?
Is it the Root CA certificate that is missing from my keystore? If that is the case, could I just copy the cacerts file from newer version of Java? My app is currently running JDK 1.6.0_33.
I am just trying to understand why this would suddenly stop working and what the "real" fix should be. It doesn't seem like modifying the JDK keystore is the correct thing to do.
I'll just assume you're using Apache HTTP Client 4.x, before 4.2.6, 4.3 Beta2, in which case javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticated is most likely to come from a certificate that isn't trusted (otherwise it means the server didn't send a cert, which is a different problem, more details in this answer).
The current cert for server you're trying to access seems to have been issued on 07/04/2014, so this indicates that the certificate, and perhaps its chain has changed recently indeed.
I don't have a JDK 1.6.0_33 at hand, but it's possible that some of these CA certs were not part of the default bundle. In any case, it's worth updating cacerts, even on older JREs (if only to remove CA certs that should no longer be trusted, for example). The JSSE Reference Guide clearly states (admittedly in the middle of a fairly long document, but it's worth searching for "important note"...):
IMPORTANT NOTE: The JDK ships with a limited number of trusted root certificates in the <java-home>/lib/security/cacerts file. As documented in keytool, it is your responsibility to maintain (that is, add/remove) the certificates contained in this file if you use this file as a truststore.
Depending on the certificate configuration of the servers you contact, you may need to add additional root certificate(s). Obtain the needed specific root certificate(s) from the appropriate vendor.
If you can't upgrade your JRE (Java 6 is in general out of support), updating the cacerts file from a more recent version is certainly a sensible compromise.
Besides the various fixes in Java 7, Java 7+ would also allow you to connect to hosts that require SNI (although this doesn't seem to be the case for this particular host).
I am implementing a VB.NET desktop application which consumes a web service.
The web service implemented in Java and I currently using Tomcat on my localhost to host the web service.
The web service requires secure communication with the client and so I have followed instructions that outlined how to use Java's keytool.exe to create two .jks keystores (one for the client and one for the server) and then create two .cer certificates (one for the client and one for the server)
I have placed the keystores and certificates generate into the directory where the web service is expecting them (according to the instructions)
I have installed the certificates into TrustedPeople and have attempted to use the certificate by setting the ClientCredentials.ClientCertificates property like this:
myServiceProxy.ClientCredentials.ClientCertificate.SetCertificate(storeLocation.CurrentUser, StoreName.TrustedPeople, X509FindType.FindByIssuerName, "name")
I keep getting the following error message when I try to call any method:
An error was discovered processing the <wsse:Security> header
My problem is that I don't know how to use this in the VB.NET client application that is consuming the web service. I could be doing this completely wrong. Any guidance on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
-Frinny
While I haven't coded VB for 10 years, this should get you started: http://www.example-code.com/vbdotnet/ssl_client_certificate.asp
especially this looks like it is loading the file containing the certificate:
certStore.LoadPfxFile("chilkat_secret.pfx","secret")
and this extracts the certificate and uses it for the connection:
Dim cert As Chilkat.Cert
cert = certStore.FindCertBySubjectCN("Chilkat Software, Inc.")
If (cert Is Nothing ) Then
MsgBox(certStore.LastErrorText)
Exit Sub
End If
socket.SetSslClientCert(cert)
When I had to work with certificates and WS, I had lots of issues with the them too. Use the certificates MMC and verify:
That you placed the certificate in the correct place. Note that there is a CurrentUser store, Machine Store etc. Make sure you put the certificate in the correct one according to your code.
Which user is running your application? Is the certificate located in it's store? The certificate must be visible to the user.
Open the certificate and make sure it is trusted (you will see a warning if not). You may need to put your CA's certificate in Trusted Certification Authorities store.
Make sure that the algorithms you use on each side are supported by the other side.
Note that you are looking for the certificate by issuer name X509FindType.FindByIssuerName, "name" open the certificate, make sure the issuer name matches (I guess not since it seems like copy&paste from example).
If all of this fails, try to experiment with the certificate location (I vaguely remember some issue with being able to use certificates from one location and not the other), and with the property you use to search for the certificates.
Plus, since you asked about certificates I answered about certificates. It's a good idea to check if there's an inner exception and see - it may be another problem.