Solution

Add the permission in client.policy (for the application client), or in server.policy (for web modules) for the application that needs to set the property. By default, applications only have read permission for properties.

For example, to grant read/write permission for all files in the codebase directory, add or append the following to client.policy or server.policy:

grant codeBase "file:/.../build/sparc_SunOS/sec/-" {
   permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read,write";
 };