Android SSL SNI connection issues

Question

I have an app that serves to consume and update data to a webserver and, recently, the app owner decided to switch to a secure connection due to personal information stored.

The server is already set up as SNI and I have checked it using digicert , the server is working fine and seems to be set up correctly, but does not include the path *.host.com on its alternate names (I am unsure if this is normal or not for SNI).

The iOS worked like a charm, however on Android I get this error:

java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Trust anchor for certification path not found.

My current connection method looks like this:

    URL url = new URL(postURL);
    HttpsURLConnection conn = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();
    SSLContext sc;
    sc = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");

    sc.init(null, null, new java.security.SecureRandom());
    conn.setSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());

    String userpass = "bob" + ":" + "12345678";
    String basicAuth = "Basic " + Base64.encodeToString(userpass.getBytes(), Base64.DEFAULT);
    conn.setRequestProperty("Authorization", basicAuth);

    conn.setReadTimeout(7000);
    conn.setConnectTimeout(7000);
    conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
    conn.setDoInput(true);

    conn.connect();

    InputStream instream = conn.getInputStream();
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(instream));

    StringBuilder everything = new StringBuilder();
    String line;

    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
        everything.append(line);
    }

    JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(everything.toString());

    return jsonObject;

I'm not quite sure what's the issue here, but trying to connect to https://sni.velox.ch/ gives me a long answer that seems like a success.

Also, I do have the pem key for the certificate here with me, but I do not know how I add that in this context.

Answer 1

Usually you get this error when using a self-signed certificate, in which case you would have to use the certificate while making the request.

Additionally, you might be getting this error because of not including the path *.host.com .

You could try the below code to pass your certificate while building the HttpsURLConnection . Please don't forget to copy the ca.pem file to assets folder.

private HttpsURLConnection buildSslServerConnection() {
    HttpsURLConnection urlConnection = null;
    try {
        // Load CAs from an InputStream
        CertificateFactory cf = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509");
        InputStream caInput = new BufferedInputStream(context.getAssets().open("ca.pem"));
        Certificate ca;
        try {
            ca = cf.generateCertificate(caInput);
        } finally {
            caInput.close();
        }

        // Create a KeyStore containing our trusted CAs
        String keyStoreType = KeyStore.getDefaultType();
        KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance(keyStoreType);
        keyStore.load(null, null);
        keyStore.setCertificateEntry("ca", ca);

        // Create a TrustManager that trusts the CAs in our KeyStore
        String tmfAlgorithm = TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm();
        TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(tmfAlgorithm);
        tmf.init(keyStore);

        // Create an SSLContext that uses our TrustManager
        SSLContext context = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
        context.init(null, tmf.getTrustManagers(), null);

        // Tell the URLConnection to use a SocketFactory from our SSLContext
        urlConnection = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        urlConnection.setSSLSocketFactory(context.getSocketFactory());
        urlConnection.setRequestMethod("POST");
        urlConnection.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic" + Base64.encodeToString(userpass.getBytes(), Base64.DEFAULT));
        urlConnection.setConnectTimeout(7000);
        urlConnection.setReadTimeout(7000);
        urlConnection.setInstanceFollowRedirects(false);
        urlConnection.setUseCaches(false);
        urlConnection.setAllowUserInteraction(false);
        urlConnection.setDoOutput(false);
    } catch (KeyManagementException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    } catch (CertificateException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    } catch (KeyStoreException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        LOG.error("Error while checking server connectivity: ", e);
    }
    return urlConnection;
}

Hope this helps.