Question
Why am I not able to start a Java application with SSL?
- Posted March 26, 2019
- JavaApplicationsUbuntu 18.04
I am trying to set up a simple Spring application to use SSL and host it on Digital Ocean. Why is my app not finding the keystore file?
The droplet I’ve set up is based on Ubuntu 18.04. I used Letsencrypt to get a certificate and this guide to generate a PKCS file. I’ve set up my application.properties file to look in the jar file’s current directory like so:
security.require-ssl:true server.ssl.key-store:keystore.p12 server.ssl.key-store-password:<password> server.ssl.key-store-type:PKCS12 server.ssl.key-alias:<alias> I would expect this to run and start a web server on the configured port. However, what I get in the stack trace is this:
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: /root/software/gimmememe/target/keystore.p12 (No such file or directory) Weirdly enough when I run the same jar with the same keystore.p12 file on my own Windows machine it runs fine:
o.s.b.w.embedded.tomcat.TomcatWebServer : Tomcat started on port(s): 9123 (https) with context path ‘’ meme.Application : Started Application in 4.985 seconds (JVM running for 5.464) I don’t think it’s a permissions issue on the Ubuntu machine as I tried setting the permissions on the keystore file like so:
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 4274 Mar 26 18:44 keystore.p12 I am running my jar file with the following command (tried with sudo infront as well):
java -jar gimme-meme-1.0.0.war
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Greetings!
This problem sounds like it could lean either direction as far as simple/complex. Given that the error is “No such file or directory” I’d like to make no assumptions and jump to the simplest test. Upon seeing that error, even if I knew the file was there, I’d be running this command immediately:
The reason being that I want to rule out any issues that my eyes might be skipping over. You and I might look at it a hundred times and never see it, so let’s zone in on that possibility. When you run that, what happens? I expect one of two outcomes:
stat: cannot stat ‘/root/software/gimmememe/target/keystore.p12’: No such file or directoryA result, something similar to:
If you get the result from #1, the file surely isn’t in that location. So ask yourself what is different from where you’re running it, as opposed to that location, and why it might be searching there. I don’t know those answers for your situation, but they may be the right questions.
If you get the result from #2, then I’m going to ask you what the result of this command is:
Perhaps the file has a strange flag on it that can throw off the java app. I doubt it, but I’m up for the idea. That test file I just made for the stat example above, it has no strange flags and here’s what it looks like:
If you get this far and you can say all of these are true:
Then I propose that the disconnect is between the application and the installed java version, but I don’t know what exactly that would be. Hopefully someone else has an idea. I can’t see it being that, the error is a pretty clear OS error.
Jarland