Connecting Securely Using SSL
SSL in MariaDB Connector/J encrypts all data (other than the initial handshake) between the JDBC driver and the server. The performance penalty for enabling SSL is an increase in query processing time between 35% and 50%, depending on the size of the query, and the amount of data it returns.
For SSL Support to work, you must have the following:
- A JDK that includes JSSE (Java Secure Sockets Extension), like JDK-1.4.1 or newer. SSL does not currently work with a JDK that you can add JSSE to, like JDK-1.2.x or JDK-1.3.x due to the following JSSE bug: http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4273544.html
- A MariaDB server that supports SSL and has been compiled and configured to do so, which is MySQL-4.0.4 or later, see , "Using SSL for Secure Connections", for more information.
- A client certificate (covered later in this section)
The system works through two Java truststore files, one file contains the certificate information for the server (truststore
in the examples below). The other file contains the certificate for the client (keystore
in the examples below). All Java truststore files are password protected by supplying a suitable password to the keytool when you create the files. You need the file names and associated passwords to create an SSL connection.
You will first need to import the MariaDB server CA Certificate into a Java truststore. A sample MariaDB server CA Certificate is located in the SSL
subdirectory of the MariaDB source distribution. This is what SSL will use to determine if you are communicating with a secure MariaDB server. Alternatively, use the CA Certificate that you have generated or been provided with by your SSL provider.
To use Java's keytool to create a truststore in the current directory , and import the server's CA certificate (cacert.pem
), you can do the following (assuming that keytool is in your path. The keytool is typically located in the bin
subdirectory of your JDK or JRE):
shell> keytool -import -alias mysqlServerCACert \ -file cacert.pem -keystore truststore
Enter the password when prompted for the keystore file. Interaction with keytool looks like this:
Enter keystore password: ********* Owner: EMAILADDRESS=walrus@example.com, CN=Walrus, O=MariaDB Foundation, L=Orenburg, ST=Some-State, C=RU Issuer: EMAILADDRESS=walrus@example.com, CN=Walrus, O=MariaDB Foundation, L=Orenburg, ST=Some-State, C=RU Serial number: 0 Valid from: Fri Aug 02 16:55:53 CDT 2002 until: Sat Aug 02 16:55:53 CDT 2003 Certificate fingerprints: MD5: 61:91:A0:F2:03:07:61:7A:81:38:66:DA:19:C4:8D:AB SHA1: 25:77:41:05:D5:AD:99:8C:14:8C:CA:68:9C:2F:B8:89:C3:34:4D:6C Trust this certificate? [no]: yes Certificate was added to keystore
You then have two options: either import the client certificate that matches the CA certificate you just imported, or create a new client certificate.
Importing an existing certificate requires the certificate to be in DER format. You can use openssl to convert an existing certificate into the new format. For example:
shell> openssl x509 -outform DER -in client-cert.pem -out client.cert
Now import the converted certificate into your keystore using keytool:
shell> keytool -import -file client.cert -keystore keystore -alias mysqlClientCertificate
To generate your own client certificate, use keytool to create a suitable certificate and add it to the keystore
file:
shell> keytool -genkey -keyalg rsa \ -alias mysqlClientCertificate -keystore keystore
Keytool will prompt you for the following information, and create a keystore named keystore
in the current directory.
Respond with information that is appropriate for your situation:
Enter keystore password: ********* What is your first and last name? [Unknown]: Matthews What is the name of your organizational unit? [Unknown]: Software Development What is the name of your organization? [Unknown]: MariaDB Foundation What is the name of your City or Locality? [Unknown]: Flossmoor What is the name of your State or Province? [Unknown]: IL What is the two-letter country code for this unit? [Unknown]: US Is <CN=Matthews, OU=Software Development, O=MariaDB Foundation, L=Flossmoor, ST=IL, C=US> correct? [no]: y Enter key password for <mysqlClientCertificate> (RETURN if same as keystore password):
Finally, to get JSSE to use the keystore and truststore that you have generated, you need to set the following system properties when you start your JVM, replacing path_to_keystore_file with the full path to the keystore file you created, path_to_truststore_file with the path to the truststore file you created, and using the appropriate password values for each property. You can do this either on the command line:
-Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=path_to_keystore_file -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=password -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=path_to_truststore_file -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=password
Or you can set the values directly within the application:
System.setProperty('javax.net.ssl.keyStore','path_to_keystore_file'); System.setProperty('javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword','password'); System.setProperty('javax.net.ssl.trustStore','path_to_truststore_file'); System.setProperty('javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword','password');
You will also need to set useSSL to true
in your connection parameters for MariaDB Connector/J, either by adding useSSL=true
to your URL, or by setting the property useSSL to true
in the java.util.Properties
instance you pass to DriverManager.getConnection()
.
You can test that SSL is working by turning on JSSE debugging (as detailed below), and look for the following key events:
... *** ClientHello, v3.1 RandomCookie: GMT: 1018531834 bytes = { 199, 148, 180, 215, 74, 12, » 54, 244, 0, 168, 55, 103, 215, 64, 16, 138, 225, 190, 132, 153, 2, » 217, 219, 239, 202, 19, 121, 78 } Session ID: {} Cipher Suites: { 0, 5, 0, 4, 0, 9, 0, 10, 0, 18, 0, 19, 0, 3, 0, 17 } Compression Methods: { 0 } *** [write] MD5 and SHA1 hashes: len = 59 0000: 01 00 00 37 03 01 3D B6 90 FA C7 94 B4 D7 4A 0C ...7..=.......J. 0010: 36 F4 00 A8 37 67 D7 40 10 8A E1 BE 84 99 02 D9 6...7g.@........ 0020: DB EF CA 13 79 4E 00 00 10 00 05 00 04 00 09 00 ....yN.......... 0030: 0A 00 12 00 13 00 03 00 11 01 00 ........... main, WRITE: SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 59 main, READ: SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 74 *** ServerHello, v3.1 RandomCookie: GMT: 1018577560 bytes = { 116, 50, 4, 103, 25, 100, 58, » 202, 79, 185, 178, 100, 215, 66, 254, 21, 83, 187, 190, 42, 170, 3, » 132, 110, 82, 148, 160, 92 } Session ID: {163, 227, 84, 53, 81, 127, 252, 254, 178, 179, 68, 63, » 182, 158, 30, 11, 150, 79, 170, 76, 255, 92, 15, 226, 24, 17, 177, » 219, 158, 177, 187, 143} Cipher Suite: { 0, 5 } Compression Method: 0 *** %% Created: [Session-1, SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA] ** SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA [read] MD5 and SHA1 hashes: len = 74 0000: 02 00 00 46 03 01 3D B6 43 98 74 32 04 67 19 64 ...F..=.C.t2.g.d 0010: 3A CA 4F B9 B2 64 D7 42 FE 15 53 BB BE 2A AA 03 :.O..d.B..S..*.. 0020: 84 6E 52 94 A0 5C 20 A3 E3 54 35 51 7F FC FE B2 .nR..\ ..T5Q.... 0030: B3 44 3F B6 9E 1E 0B 96 4F AA 4C FF 5C 0F E2 18 .D?.....O.L.\... 0040: 11 B1 DB 9E B1 BB 8F 00 05 00 .......... main, READ: SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 1712 ...
JSSE provides debugging (to STDOUT) when you set the following system property: -Djavax.net.debug=all
This will tell you what keystores and truststores are being used, as well as what is going on during the SSL handshake and certificate exchange. It will be helpful when trying to determine what is not working when trying to get an SSL connection to happen.