CXF RESTful Client - How to do trust all certs?

Question

I have written Jersey RESTful clients that made use of a Dumb X509TrustManager and HostnameVerifier to trust all SSL certs on our lab systems to make it easier to deal with certs that are self-signed.

        ClientConfig config = new DefaultClientConfig();
        SSLContext context = null;
        try
        {
            context = SSLContext.getInstance("SSL");
            context.init(null,
                    new TrustManager[] { new DumbX509TrustManager() },
                    null);
            config.getProperties()
                    .put(HTTPSProperties.PROPERTY_HTTPS_PROPERTIES,
                            new HTTPSProperties(this.getHostnameVerifier(),
                                    context));
            webClient = Client.create(config);
        }
        ....

Is there a way for me to do something similar using CXF?

Codger

Answer 1

This is from the CXF mailing list. Note that I didn't have to implement it due to other system updates, so this is theoretical:

WebClient webClient = WebClient.create(this.serviceURL,
    this.username,
    this.password,
    null); // Spring config file - we don't use this

if (trustAllCerts)
{
    HTTPConduit conduit = WebClient.getConfig(webClient)
        .getHttpConduit();

    TLSClientParameters params = 
        conduit.getTlsClientParameters();

    if (params == null) 
    {
        params = new TLSClientParameters();
        conduit.setTlsClientParameters(params);
    }

    params.setTrustManagers(new TrustManager[] { new
        DumbX509TrustManager() }); 

    params.setDisableCNCheck(true);
}

Codger

This answer details how you might set up a dummy TrustManager that accepts certificates blindly. (of course, you probably don't want to use something like it in production) – Alsworth

Answer 2

To complete the answer from sdoca, here is an implementation with a dumb X509 trust manager:

import org.apache.cxf.configuration.jsse.TLSClientParameters;
import org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.client.WebClient;
import org.apache.cxf.transport.http.HTTPConduit;
[...]

public class ApiClient {

    private WebClient webClient;
    [...]

    public void init() {

        webClient = createWebClient(URI).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON).type(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
        addX509TrustManager();
    }

    private void addX509TrustManager() {
        Assert.notNull(webClient, "Client needs to be initialized");
        HTTPConduit conduit = WebClient.getConfig(webClient).getHttpConduit();
        TLSClientParameters params = conduit.getTlsClientParameters();

        if (params == null) {
            params = new TLSClientParameters();
            conduit.setTlsClientParameters(params);
        }

        params.setTrustManagers(new TrustManager[] { new BlindTrustManager() });
        params.setDisableCNCheck(true);
    }

}

Where BlindTrustManager is defined as follows:

import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;
import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager;

/**
 * This dumb X509TrustManager trusts all certificate. TThis SHOULD NOT be used in Production. 
 */
public class BlindTrustManager implements X509TrustManager {

    @Override
    public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] chain,
            String authType) throws java.security.cert.CertificateException {
    }

    @Override
    public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] chain,
            String authType) throws java.security.cert.CertificateException {
    }

    @Override
    public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
        return null;
    }
}

It may be useful to check this links for a better understanding:

• Accept server's self-signed ssl certificate in Java client
• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/javax/net/ssl/X509TrustManager.html

Jewbaiting