I have a (remote) tomcat server (idp.mydomain.com) where I deployed the Shibboleth IDP. The communication is secured over SSL with a self-signed certificate. I can access the metadata config XML if I add an exception to my browser.
On a second (local) tomcat (sp.localhost.mydomain.com) I have a spring application which uses SAML to authenticate against my IDP. However, I get the following certificate error when starting up the SP:
Caused by: javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:192)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1949)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:302)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:296)
at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1509)
at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.processMessage(ClientHandshaker.java:216)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.processLoop(Handshaker.java:979)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.process_record(Handshaker.java:914)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:1062)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.performInitialHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1375)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.writeRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:747)
at sun.security.ssl.AppOutputStream.write(AppOutputStream.java:123)
at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flushBuffer(BufferedOutputStream.java:82)
at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flush(BufferedOutputStream.java:140)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpConnection.flushRequestOutputStream(HttpConnection.java:828)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase.writeRequest(HttpMethodBase.java:2116)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase.execute(HttpMethodBase.java:1096)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeWithRetry(HttpMethodDirector.java:398)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeMethod(HttpMethodDirector.java:171)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:397)
at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:323)
at org.opensaml.saml2.metadata.provider.HTTPMetadataProvider.fetchMetadata(HTTPMetadataProvider.java:250)
... 30 more
Caused by: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
at sun.security.validator.PKIXValidator.doBuild(PKIXValidator.java:387)
at sun.security.validator.PKIXValidator.engineValidate(PKIXValidator.java:292)
at sun.security.validator.Validator.validate(Validator.java:260)
at sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl.validate(X509TrustManagerImpl.java:324)
at sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl.checkTrusted(X509TrustManagerImpl.java:229)
at sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl.checkServerTrusted(X509TrustManagerImpl.java:124)
at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1491)
... 47 more
Caused by: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
at sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilder.build(SunCertPathBuilder.java:146)
at sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilder.engineBuild(SunCertPathBuilder.java:131)
at java.security.cert.CertPathBuilder.build(CertPathBuilder.java:280)
at sun.security.validator.PKIXValidator.doBuild(PKIXValidator.java:382)
... 53 more
It works if I go against a server with a valid certificate, but how can I convince my stubborn tomcat to also accept self-signed ones?
You need to create a JKS truststore and include the public part of the self-signed certificate. Then, SSL connection will accept the server certificate
Start tomcat with
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=/path/to/truststore.jks
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=truststorePassword