April 2019

There was one post published in April 2019.

Solving “Received fatal alert: handshake_failure” error when performing HTTPS connections on a custom made JRE with jlink

TL; Tell me already what to do:
Add the jdk.crypto.cryptoki module to the list of --add-modules parameter to your jlink command invocation

If you’re reading this you’re one of the few developers out there that wanted to distribute a java 9+ app (using either jdk 9, jdk 10, jdk 11 or jdk 12, as of this writing) with a smaller version of the jdk, to build your custom jre, you used the jlink tool.

When you run your app using the full JRE that comes with the OpenJDK, your app is working fine when it comes to making https requests, but when you run your app using your custom jre you get the following error when opening https connections

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”Received%20fatal%20alert%3A%20handshake_failure” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

This issue occurs because your JRE is missing lots of Cipher Suites that come with the full JDK.

With your JDK, you can try to check the list of supported ciphers with this one liner using the jrunscript tool:

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”jrunscript%20-e%20%22print(java.util.Arrays.toString(javax.net.ssl.SSLServerSocketFactory.getDefault().getSupportedCipherSuites()))%22%0A” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

however that might not work for your custom JRE if you haven’t included the scripting module, so here’s a Java program I made that prints all the available Ciphers of your JRE

[pastacode lang=”java” manual=”public%20class%20PrintCiphers%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20public%20static%20void%20main(String%5B%5D%20args)%20%7B%0A%09var%20sslSocketFactory%20%3D%20javax.net.ssl.SSLServerSocketFactory.getDefault()%3B%0A%09System.out.println(%22SSLServerSocketFactory%20-%3E%20%22%20%2B%20sslSocketFactory.getClass().getName())%3B%0A%09try%20%7B%0A%20%20%09%20%20%20%20var%20getSupportedCipherSuitesMethod%20%3D%20sslSocketFactory.getClass().getMethod(%22getSupportedCipherSuites%22)%3B%0A%09%20%20%20%20String%5B%5D%20ciphers%20%3D%20(String%5B%5D)%20getSupportedCipherSuitesMethod.invoke(sslSocketFactory)%3B%0A%09%20%20%20%20int%20i%3D1%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20for%20(String%20c%20%3A%20ciphers)%20%7B%0A%09%09System.out.println(i%2B%2B%20%2B%20%22%20%22%20%2B%20c)%3B%0A%09%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%09%7D%20catch(Throwable%20t)%20%7B%0A%09%20%20%20%20t.printStackTrace()%3B%0A%09%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%7D%0A” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

If you run PrintCiphers on your OpenJDK’s full JRE, you will see almost 50 Cipher Suites available:

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”%24%20java%20PrintCiphers%3B%0A1%20TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A2%20TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A3%20TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256%0A4%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A5%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A6%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256%0A7%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A8%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256%0A9%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A10%20TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A11%20TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A12%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A13%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256%0A14%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A15%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A16%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A17%20TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A18%20TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A19%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A20%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A21%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384%0A22%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384%0A23%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256%0A24%20TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384%0A25%20TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384%0A26%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256%0A27%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256%0A28%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A29%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A30%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A31%20TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A32%20TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A33%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A34%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A35%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A36%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A37%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A38%20TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A39%20TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A40%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A41%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A42%20TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A43%20TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A44%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A45%20TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A46%20TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A47%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A48%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A49%20TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV%0A” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

but if you use your custom JRE to run PrintCiphers you will see only 23 Cipher Suites available:

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”%24%20jre%2Fbin%2Fjava%20PrintCiphers%0A1%20TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A2%20TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A3%20TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256%0A4%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A5%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A6%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256%0A7%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384%0A8%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A9%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A10%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256%0A11%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256%0A12%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256%0A13%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256%0A14%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A15%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A16%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA%0A17%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A18%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A19%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256%0A20%20TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A21%20TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A22%20TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA%0A23%20TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV%0A” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

To solve the problem you must add the jdk.crypto.cryptoki module to the list of --add-modules parameter to your jlink command invocation, next time your run PrintCiphers you should see the full list of Cipher Suites and your SSL handshake issues should be gone.