How to enable TLS 1.2 in Java 7

Question

I am trying to enable TLS 1.2 in my web app which uses JBoss 6.4 and Java 1.7. I have -Dhttp.protocols = TLSv1.2 in my application environment but it doesn't seem to work for me.

Is there anything I could do to enable TLS 1.2?

I wrote a simple program

context = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2");
context.init(null,null,null);
SSLContext.setDefault(context); 
SSLSocketFactory factory = (SSLSocketFactory)context.getSocketFactory();
SSLSocket socket = (SSLSocket)factory.createSocket();
protocols = socket.getEnabledProtocols();

After running this program within the app the TLS 1.2 gets enabled. I do not want to run this program but I want to directly enable it during app startup. Is there any way to do it?

Answer 1

There are many suggestions but I found two of them most common.

Re. JAVA_OPTS

I first tried export JAVA_OPTS="-Dhttps.protocols=SSLv3,TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2" on command line before startup of program but it didn't work for me.

Re. constructor

Then I added the following code in the startup class constructor and it worked for me.

try {
        SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2");
        ctx.init(null, null, null);
        SSLContext.setDefault(ctx);
} catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}

Frankly, I don't know in detail why ctx.init(null, null, null); but all (SSL/TLS) is working fine for me.

Re. System.setProperty

There is one more option: System.setProperty("https.protocols", "SSLv3,TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2");. It will also go in code but I've not tried it.

Answer 2

You can upgrade your Java 7 version to 1.7.0_131-b31

For JRE 1.7.0_131-b31 in Oracle site :

TLSv1.2 and TLSv1.1 are now enabled by default on the TLS client end-points. This is similar behavior to what already happens in JDK 8 releases.

Answer 3

Add following option for java application:

-Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2  

Answer 4

Add this parameter to JAVA_OPTS or to the command line in Maven: -Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1.2

Answer 5

System.setProperty("https.protocols", "TLSv1.2"); worked in my case. Have you checked that within the application?

Answer 6

The stated answers are correct, but I'm just sharing one additional gotcha that was applicable to my case: in addition to using setProtocol/withProtocol, you may have some nasty jars that won't go away even if have the right jars plus an old one:

Remove

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-httpclient</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-httpclient</artifactId>
    <version>3.1</version>
</dependency>

Retain

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
    <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
    <version>4.5.2</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
    <artifactId>httpcore</artifactId>
    <version>4.4.6</version>
</dependency>

Java is backward compatible, but most libraries are not. Each day that passes the more I wish shared libraries were outlawed with this lack of accountability.

Further info

java version "1.7.0_80"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_80-b15)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.80-b11, mixed mode)

Answer 7

To force enable TLSv1.2 in JRE7u_80 I had to use following code snippet before creating JDBC connection.

import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.Provider;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContextSpi;
import sun.security.jca.GetInstance;
import sun.security.jca.ProviderList;
import sun.security.jca.Providers;

public static void enableTLSv12ForMssqlJdbc() throws NoSuchAlgorithmException
{
    ProviderList providerList = Providers.getProviderList();
    GetInstance.Instance instance = GetInstance.getInstance("SSLContext", SSLContextSpi.class, "TLS");
    for (Provider provider : providerList.providers())
    {
        if (provider == instance.provider)
        {
            provider.put("Alg.Alias.SSLContext.TLS", "TLSv1.2");
        }
    }
}

Able to connect to Windows 10 with SQL server 2017 & TLSv1.2 enabled OS.

Answer 8

You should probably be looking to the configuration that controls the underlying platform TLS implementation via -Djdk.tls.client.protocols=TLSv1.2.

Answer 9

I solved this issue by using

Service.setSslSecurityProtocol(SSLSecurityProtocol.TLSv1_2);

Answer 10

I had similar issue when connecting to RDS Oracle even when client and server were both set to TLSv1.2 the certs was right and java was 1.8.0_141 So Finally I had to apply patch at Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files

After applying the patch the issue went away and connection went fine.