Java - verifying certificate with system TrustStore

Question

Premise: I have a certificate and I want to verify that the system 'trusts' this certificate (signed by a trusted root CA by Java / Operating System)

I have found some varying solutions on how to accomplish this.

Option 1:

Use SSL classes to derive trust.

TrustManagerFactory tmfactory = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm());
tmfactory.init((KeyStore) null);
for (TrustManager trustManager : tmfactory.getTrustManagers()) {
    if (trustManager instanceof X509TrustManager) {
        try {
            ((X509TrustManager) trustManager).checkClientTrusted(new X509Certificate[] {new JcaX509CertificateConverter().getCertificate(holder)}, "RSA");
            System.out.println("This certificate is trusted by a Root CA");
        } catch (CertificateException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Since this approach relies heavily on SSL classes (which are not needed by the current project) we are looking for alternatives.

Option 2: Load Java's cacertsfile into a keystore and check each 'most-trusted' certificate against my certificate for equality.

String filename = System.getProperty("java.home") + "/lib/security/cacerts".replace('/', File.separatorChar);
FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(filename);
KeyStore keystore = KeyStore.getInstance(KeyStore.getDefaultType());
String password = "changeit";
keystore.load(is, password.toCharArray());

// This class retrieves the most-trusted CAs from the keystore
PKIXParameters params = new PKIXParameters(keystore);
// Get the set of trust anchors, which contain the most-trusted CA certificates
Set<X509Certificate> rootCertificates = params.getTrustAnchors().parallelStream().map(TrustAnchor::getTrustedCert).collect(Collectors.toSet());
return rootCertificates.contains(holderX509);

The problem with this approach is that it requires a password to verify integrity of the JKS encoded file. While the SSL one seemingly does not (or rather uses System.getProperty("javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword") which again is heavily tied to SSL.

Question: Does there exist a solution that is in between manually loading certificates from a file and pure SSL? I feel as if there should be some class that I can call to simply verify the system trust of a certificate without having to jump through a couple hoops.

Stockwell

There's nothing wrong with using the TrustManager here. That's what it's for. Overcome your aversion. – Tamatamable

Answer 1

After reading Beginning Cryptography With Java by David Hook I have produced the following example to verify a certificate chain (which accomplishes the original goal of using the system truststore to verify Root CA's)

CertificateFactory certificateFactory = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509", new BouncyCastleProvider());
InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(some bytes in an array);
CertPath certPath = certificateFactory.generateCertPath(is, "PKCS7"); // Throws Certificate Exception when a cert path cannot be generated
CertPathValidator certPathValidator = CertPathValidator.getInstance("PKIX", new BouncyCastleProvider());
PKIXParameters parameters = new PKIXParameters(KeyTool.getCacertsKeyStore());

PKIXCertPathValidatorResult validatorResult = (PKIXCertPathValidatorResult) certPathValidator.validate(certPath, parameters); // This will throw a CertPathValidatorException if validation fails

This also accomplishes the goal of not having to use SSL classes - instead Java security classes / algorithms are used.

Stockwell

Answer 2

Short of downloading a third-party library, there probably isn't another alternative.

Why are you trying to avoid the "SSL" library? It's part of the standard library and so puts no burden on your program.

In any case, certificate verification is a big part of SSL. I doubt anyone's gone to the trouble of creating a library that does so without also implementing some substantial subset of the SSL protocol. There's just no real reason to do so.

Vanettavang