Sun Java System Message Queue 4.3 Administration Guide

Message Encryption

This section explains how to set up a connection service based on the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) standard, which enables delivery of encrypted messages over the connection. Message Queue supports the following SSL-based connection services:

The remainder of this section describes how to set up secure connections over TCP/IP, using the ssljms, ssladmin, and cluster connection services. For information on setting up secure connections over HTTP with the httpsjms service, see Appendix C, HTTP/HTTPS Support.

Using Self-Signed Certificates

To use an SSL-based connection service over TCP/IP, you generate a public/private key pair using the Key Tool utility (imqkeytool). This utility embeds the public key in a self-signed certificate that is passed to any client requesting a connection to the broker, and the client uses the certificate to set up an encrypted connection. This section describes how to set up an SSL-based service using such self-signed certificates.

For a stronger level of authentication, you can use signed certificates verified by a certification authority. The use of signed certificates involves some additional steps beyond those needed for self-signed certificates: you must first perform the procedures described in this section and then perform the additional steps in Using Signed Certificates.

Message Queue's support for SSL with self-signed certificates is oriented toward securing on-the-wire data, on the assumption that the client is communicating with a known and trusted server. Configuring SSL with self-signed certificates requires configuration on both the broker and client:

Setting Up an SSL-Based Connection Service Using Self-Signed Certificates

The following sequence of procedures are needed to set up an SSL-based connection service for using self-signed certificates:


Note –

Starting with release 4.0, the default value for the client connection factory property imqSSLIsHostTrusted is false. If your application depends on the prior default value of true, you need to reconfigure and to set the property explicitly to true. In particular, old or new clients using self-signed certificates should set this property to true; for example:

java -DimqConnectionType=TLS -DimqSSLIsHostTrusted=true MyApp

The administration tool imqcmd is also affected by this change. In addition to using the –secure option to specify that it uses a SSL-based admin connection service, the imqSSLIsHostTrusted should be set to true when connecting to a broker configured with a self-signed certificate. You can do this as follows:

imqcmd list svc -secure -DimqSSLIsHostTrusted=true

Alternatively, you can import the broker's self-signed certificate into the client runtime trust store. Use the procedure in To Install a Signed Certificate.


  1. Generate a self-signed certificate.

  2. Enable the desired SSL-based connection services in the broker. These can include the ssljms, ssladmin, or cluster connection services.

  3. Start the broker.

ProcedureTo Generate a Self-Signed Certificate

Run the Key Tool utility (imqkeytool) to generate a self-signed certificate for the broker. (On Solaris and Linux operating systems, you may need to run the utility as the root user in order to have permission to create the keystore file.) The same certificate can be used for all SSL-based connection services (ssljms, ssladmin, cluster connection services, and the ssljmxrmi connector).

  1. Enter the following at the command prompt:

    imqkeytool -broker

    The Key Tool utility prompts you for a key store password:

  2. At the prompt type a keystore password.

    The Keystore utility prompts you for identifying information from which to construct an X.500 distinguished name. The following table shows the prompts and the values to be provided for each. Values are case-insensitive and can include spaces.

    Prompt 

    X.500 Attribute 

    Description 

    Example 

    What is your first and last name?

    commonName (CN)

    Fully qualified name of server running the broker 

    mqserver.sun.com

    What is the name of your organizational unit?

    organizationalUnit (OU)

    Name of department or division 

    purchasing

    What is the name of your organization?

    organizationName (ON)

    Name of larger organization, such as a company or government entity 

    Acme Widgets, Inc.

    What is the name of your city or locality?

    localityName (L)

    Name of city or locality 

    San Francisco

    What is the name of your state or province?

    stateName (ST)

    Full (unabbreviated) name of state or province 

    California

    What is the two-letter country code for this unit?

    country (C)

    Standard two-letter country code 

    US

    The Key Tool utility displays the information you entered for confirmation. For example,

       Is CN=mqserver.sun.com, OU=purchasing, ON=Acme Widgets, Inc.,
       L=San Francisco, ST=California, C=US correct?
  3. Accept the current values and proceed by typing yes.

    To reenter values, accept the default or enter no. After you confirm, the utility pauses while it generates a key pair.

    The utility asks for a password to lock the key pair (key password).

  4. Press return.

    This will set the same password for both the key password and the keystore password.


    Caution – Caution –

    Be sure to remember the password you specify. You must provide this password when you start the broker, to allow the broker to open the keystore file. You can store the keystore password in a password file (see Password Files).


    The Key Tool utility generates a self-signed certificate and places it in Message Queue’s keystore file. The keystore file is located in a directory whose location depends upon the operating system platform, as shown in Appendix A, Platform-Specific Locations of Message Queue Data.

    The following are the configurable properties for the Message Queue keystore for SSL-based connection services:

    imq.keystore.file.dirpath

    Path to directory containing keystore file (see Appendix A, Platform-Specific Locations of Message Queue Data for default value)

    imq.keystore.file.name

    Name of key store file

    imq.keystore.password

    Ke store password (to be used only in a password file)

    In some circumstances, you may need to regenerate a key pair in order to solve certain problems: for example, if you forget the key store password or if the SSL-based service fails to initialize when you start a broker and you get the exception:

       java.security.UnrecoverableKeyException: Cannot recover key
    

    (This exception may result if you provided a key password different from the keystore password when you generated the self-signed certificate.)

ProcedureTo Regenerate a Key Pair

  1. Remove the broker’s keystore file.

    The file is located as shown in Appendix A, Platform-Specific Locations of Message Queue Data.

  2. Run imqkeytool again.

    The command will generate a new key pair, as described above.

ProcedureTo Enable an SSL-Based Connection Service in the Broker

To enable an SSL-based connection service in the broker, you need to add the corresponding service or services to the imq.service.activelist property.

  1. Open the broker’s instance configuration file.

    The instance configuration file is located in a directory identified by the name of the broker instance (instanceName) with which the configuration file is associated (see Appendix A, Platform-Specific Locations of Message Queue Data):

          …/instances/instanceName/props/config.properties
    
  2. Add an entry (if one does not already exist) for the imq.service.activelist property and include the desired SSL-based service(s) in the list.

    By default, the property includes the jms and admin connection services. Add the SSL-based service or services you wish to activate (ssljms, ssladmin, or both):

       imq.service.activelist=jms,admin,ssljms,ssladmin
    

    Note –

    The SSL-based cluster connection service is enabled using the imq.cluster.transport property rather than the imq.service.activelist property (see Cluster Connection Service Properties). To enable SSL for RMI-based JMX connectors, see SSL-Based JMX Connections.


  3. Save and close the instance configuration file.

ProcedureTo Start the Broker

Start the broker, providing the key store password.


Note –

When you start a broker or client with SSL, you may notice a sharp increase in CPU usage for a few seconds. This is because the JSSE (Java Secure Socket Extension) method java.security.SecureRandom, which Message Queue uses to generate random numbers, takes a significant amount of time to create the initial random number seed. Once the seed is created, the CPU usage level will drop to normal.


  1. Start the broker, providing the keystore password.

    Put the keystore password in a password file, as described in Password Files and set the imq.passfile.enabled property to true. You can now do one of the following:

    • Pass the location of the password file to the imqbrokerd command:

      imqbrokerd -passfile /passfileDirectory/passfileName

    • Start the broker without the -passfile option, but specify the location of the password file using the following two broker configuration properties:

      imq.passfile.dirpath=/passfileDirectory

      imq.passfile.name=/passfileName

  2. If you are not using a password file, enter the keystore password at the prompt.

    imqbrokerd

    You are prompted for the keystore passwrd.

Configuring and Running an SSL-Based Client Using Self-Signed Certificates

The procedure for configuring a client to use an SSL-based connection service differs depending on whether it is an application client (using the ssljms connection service) or a Message Queue administrative client such as imqcmd (using the ssladmin connection service.)

Application Clients

For application clients, you must make sure the client has the following .jar files specified in its CLASSPATH variable:

imq.jar

jms.jar

Once the CLASSPATH files are properly specified, one way to start the client and connect to the broker’s ssljms connection service is by entering a command like the following:

   java  -DimqConnectionType=TLS clientAppName

This tells the connection to use an SSL-based connection service.

Administrative Clients

For administrative clients, you can establish a secure connection by including the -secure option when you invoke the imqcmd command: for example,

   imqcmd list svc  -b hostName:portNumber  -u userName  -secure

where userName is a valid ADMIN entry in the Message Queue user repository. The command will prompt you for the password.

Listing the connection services is a way to verify that the ssladmin service is running and that you can successfully make a secure administrative connection, as shown in Example 9–6.


Example 9–6 Connection Services Listing


Listing all the services on the broker specified by:

Host                 Primary Port
localhost            7676

Service Name     Port Number       Service State
admin            33984 (dynamic)   RUNNING
httpjms          -                 UNKNOWN
httpsjms         -                 UNKNOWN
jms              33983 (dynamic)   RUNNING
ssladmin         35988 (dynamic)   RUNNING
ssljms           dynamic           UNKNOWN

Successfully listed services.


Using Signed Certificates

Signed certificates provide a stronger level of server authentication than self-signed certificates. You can implement signed certificates only between a client and broker, and currently not between multiple brokers in a cluster. This requires the following extra procedures in addition to the ones described in Using Self-Signed Certificates. Using signed certificates requires configuration on both the broker and client:

Obtaining and Installing a Signed Certificate

The following procedures explain how to obtain and install a signed certificate.

ProcedureTo Obtain a Signed Certificate

  1. Use the J2SE keytool command to generate a certificate signing request (CSR) for the self-signed certificate you generated in the preceding section.

    Information about the keytool command can be found at

    Here is an example:

       keytool  -certreq  -keyalg RSA  -alias imq  -file certreq.csr
                -keystore /etc/imq/keystore  -storepass myStorePassword
    

    This generates a CSR encapsulating the certificate in the specified file (certreq.csr in the example).

  2. Use the CSR to generate or request a signed certificate.

    You can do this by either of the following methods:

    • Have the certificate signed by a well known certification authority (CA), such as Thawte or Verisign. See your CA’s documentation for more information on how to do this.

    • Sign the certificate yourself, using an SSL signing software package.

      The resulting signed certificate is a sequence of ASCII characters. If you receive the signed certificate from a CA, it may arrive as an e-mail attachment or in the text of a message.

  3. Save the signed certificate in a file.

    The instructions below use the example name broker.cer to represent the broker certificate.

ProcedureTo Install a Signed Certificate

  1. Check whether J2SE supports your certification authority by default.

    The following command lists the root CAs in the system key store:

       keytool  -v  -list  -keystore $JAVA_HOME/lib/security/cacerts
    

    If your CA is listed, skip the next step.

  2. If your certification authority is not supported in J2SE, import the CA’s root certificate into the Message Queue key store.

    Here is an example:

       keytool  -import  -alias ca  -file ca.cer  -noprompt  -trustcacerts
                -keystore /etc/imq/keystore  -storepass myStorePassword
    

    where ca.cer is the file containing the root certificate obtained from the CA.

    If you are using a CA test certificate, you probably need to import the test CA root certificate. Your CA should have instructions on how to obtain a copy.

  3. Import the signed certificate into the key store to replace the original self-signed certificate.

    Here is an example:

       keytool  -import  -alias imq  -file broker.cer  -noprompt  -trustcacerts
                -keystore /etc/imq/keystore  -storepass myStorePassword
    

    where broker.cer is the file containing the signed certificate that you received from the CA.

    The Message Queue key store now contains a signed certificate to use for SSL connections.

Configuring the Client to Require Signed Certificates

You must now configure the Message Queue client runtime to require signed certificates, and ensure that it trusts the certification authority that signed the certificate.


Note –

By default, starting with release 4.0, the connection factory object that the client will be using to establish broker connections has its imqSSLIsHostTrusted attribute set to false, meaning that the client runtime will attempt to validate all certificates. Validation will fail if the signer of the certificate is not in the client's trust store.


ProcedureTo Configure the Client Runtime to Require Signed Certificates

  1. Verify whether the signing authority is registered in the client's trust store.

    To test whether the client will accept certificates signed by your certification authority, try to establish an SSL connection, as described above under Configuring and Running an SSL-Based Client Using Self-Signed Certificates. If the CA is in the client's trust store, the connection will succeed and you can skip the next step. If the connection fails with a certificate validation error, go on to the next step.

  2. Install the signing CA’s root certificate in the client’s trust store.

    The client searches the key store files cacerts and jssecacerts by default, so no further configuration is necessary if you install the certificate in either of those files. The following example installs a test root certificate from the Verisign certification authority from a file named testrootca.cer into the default system certificate file, cacerts. The example assumes that J2SE is installed in the directory $JAVA_HOME/usr/j2se:

       keytool  -import  -keystore /usr/j2se/jre/lib/security/cacerts
                -alias VerisignTestCA  -file testrootca.cer  -noprompt
                -trustcacerts  -storepass myStorePassword
    

    An alternative (and recommended) option is to install the root certificate into the alternative system certificate file, jssecacerts:

       keytool  -import  -keystore /usr/j2se/jre/lib/security/jssecacerts
                -alias VerisignTestCA  -file testrootca.cer  -noprompt
                -trustcacerts  -storepass myStorePassword
    

    A third possibility is to install the root certificate into some other key store file and configure the client to use that as its trust store. The following example installs into the file /home/smith/.keystore:

       keytool  -import  -keystore /home/smith/.keystore
                -alias VerisignTestCA  -file testrootca.cer  -noprompt
                -trustcacerts  -storepass myStorePassword
    

    Since the client does not search this key store by default, you must explicitly provide its location to the client to use as a trust store. You do this by setting the Java system property javax.net.ssl.trustStore once the client is running:

       javax.net.ssl.trustStore=/home/smith/.keystore