How to configure Tomcat to support SSL or https

A guide to show you how to configureTomcat 6.0 to support SSL or https connection.

1. Generate Keystore

First, uses “keytool” command to create a self-signed certificate. During the keystore creation process, you need to assign a password and fill in the certificate’s detail.

$Tomcat\bin>keytool -genkey -alias bestjavapractices -keyalg RSA -keystore c:\ bestjavapracticeskeystore

Enter keystore password:

Re-enter new password:

What is your first and last name?

  [Unknown]:  Amit Kumar Mangal

What is the name of your organizational unit?

  //omitted to save space

  [no]:  yes

Enter key password for <bestjavapractices>

        (RETURN if same as keystore password):

Re-enter new password:

$Tomcat\bin>

Here, you just created a certificate named “bestjavapracticeskeystore“, which locate at “c:\“.

Certificate Details
You can use same “keytool” command to list the existing certificate’s detail

$Tomcat\bin>keytool -list -keystore c:\ bestjavapracticeskeystore

Enter keystore password:

Keystore type: JKS

Keystore provider: SUN

Your keystore contains 1 entry

mkyong, 14 Disember 2010, PrivateKeyEntry,

Certificate fingerprint (MD5): C8:DD:A1:AF:9F:55:A0:7F:6E:98:10:DE:8C:63:1B:A5

$Tomcat\bin>

2. Connector in server.xml

Next, locate your Tomcat’s server configuration file at $Tomcat\conf\server.xml, modify it by adding a connector element to support for SSL or https connection.
File : $Tomcat\conf\server.xml

 //...

<!-- Define a SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8443

         This connector uses the JSSE configuration, when using APR, the 

         connector should be using the OpenSSL style configuration

         described in the APR documentation -->

<Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true"

               maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true"

               clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" 

               keystoreFile="c:\bestjavapracticeskeystore "

               keystorePass="password" />

  //...

Note
keystorePass="password" is the password you assigned to your keystore via “keytool” command.

3. Done

 

Saved it and restart Tomcat, access to https://localhost:8443/

In this example, we are using Google Chrome to access the Tomcat configured SSL site, and you may notice a crossed icon appear before the https protocol , this is caused by the self-signed certificate and Google chrome just do not trust it.
In production environment, you should consider buy a signed certificate from trusted SSL service provider like verisign or sign it with your own CA server

Reference

1. Tomcat 6 : SSL configuration HOW-TO