How to configure SSL/TLS support on Tomcat

To install and configure SSL/TLS support on Tomcat, you need to follow these simple steps.

Unix:
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$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA
and specify a password value of "changeit".

Uncomment the "SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector" entry in $CATALINA_BASE/conf/server.xml and modify as described in the Configuration section below.

Tomcat currently operates only on JKS, PKCS11 or PKCS12 format keystores. The JKS format is Java's standard "Java KeyStore" format, and is the format created by the keytool command-line utility. This tool is included in the JDK. The PKCS12 format is an internet standard, and can be manipulated via (among other things) OpenSSL and Microsoft's Key-Manager.

Each entry in a keystore is identified by an alias string. Whilst many keystore implementations treat aliases in a case insensitive manner, case sensitive implementations are available. The PKCS11 specification, for example, requires that aliases are case sensitive. To avoid issues related to the case sensitivity of aliases, it is not recommended to use aliases that differ only in case.

To import an existing certificate into a JKS keystore, please read the documentation (in your JDK documentation package) about keytool. Note that OpenSSL often adds readable comments before the key, but keytool does not support that. So if your certificate has comments before the key data, remove them before importing the certificate with keytool.

To import an existing certificate signed by your own CA into a PKCS12 keystore using OpenSSL you would execute a command like:

openssl pkcs12 -export -in mycert.crt -inkey mykey.key
                        -out mycert.p12 -name tomcat -CAfile myCA.crt
                        -caname root -chain
For more advanced cases, consult the OpenSSL documentation.

To create a new JKS keystore from scratch, containing a single self-signed Certificate, execute the following from a terminal command line:


Unix:

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA
(The RSA algorithm should be preferred as a secure algorithm, and this also ensures general compatibility with other servers and components.)

This command will create a new file, in the home directory of the user under which you run it, named ".keystore". To specify a different location or filename, add the -keystore parameter, followed by the complete pathname to your keystore file, to the keytool command shown above. You will also need to reflect this new location in the server.xml configuration file, as described later. For example:

Unix:

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA
  -keystore /path/to/my/keystore
After executing this command, you will first be prompted for the keystore password. The default password used by Tomcat is "changeit" (all lower case), although you can specify a custom password if you like. You will also need to specify the custom password in the server.xml configuration file, as described later.

Next, you will be prompted for general information about this Certificate, such as company, contact name, and so on. This information will be displayed to users who attempt to access a secure page in your application, so make sure that the information provided here matches what they will expect.

Finally, you will be prompted for the key password, which is the password specifically for this Certificate (as opposed to any other Certificates stored in the same keystore file). The keytool prompt will tell you that pressing the ENTER key automatically uses the same password for the key as the keystore. You are free to use the same password or to select a custom one. If you select a different password to the keystore password, you will also need to specify the custom password in the server.xml configuration file.

If everything was successful, you now have a keystore file with a Certificate that can be used by your server.