How to configure Tomcat to support SSL or https

Thanks to http://www.mkyong.com/tomcat/how-to-configure-tomcat-to-support-ssl-or-https/

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 mkyong -keyalg RSA -keystore c:\mkyongkeystore
Enter keystore password:
Re-enter new password:
What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  yong mook kim
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  //omitted to save space
  [no]:  yes
 
Enter key password for <mkyong>
        (RETURN if same as keystore password):
Re-enter new password:
 
$Tomcat\bin>

Here, you just created a certificate named "mkyongkeystore", which locate at "c:\".

Check your certificate details

Certificate Details
You can use same "keytool" command to list the existing certificate's detail
$Tomcat\bin>keytool -list -keystore c:\mkyongkeystore
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:\mkyongkeystore"
        keystorePass="password" />
  //...

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