How do I disable SSL certification validation in communication between agent and Controller?

When the Java or Database Agent stops communicating, or cannot communicate, with the Controller, and an error message appears in the agent logs, how do I disable the SSL certification validation between the agent and Controller?

In this article...

Symptom | Troubleshooting and solution | More about this JVM flag

Symptom

You observe the following error message is visible in the Agent logs:

[Thread-0] 22 Jun 2017 11:53:52,467 ERROR ConfigurationChannel - Exception: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target

Troubleshooting and solution

Verify whether the SSL certificate is installed and enabled by following the steps in the documentation: Enable SSL for the Java Agent
Alternatively, run the Java Agent with the following system property to resolve the issue:
-Dappdynamics.force.default.ssl.certificate.validation=false

More information about this JVM flag:

appdynamics.force.default.ssl.certificate.validation=false

This JVM flag means that minimal certificate validation is done, which means that the notBefore and notAfter are still checked.

If this property is set to true, full certification chain validation is done.

There is no way to fully disable the validation of notBefore and notAfter dates as that defies the purpose of SSL.

When this property is set to false, the X509Certificate.checkValidity method is called, which would validate the certificate start and expiry dates.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/security/cert/X509Certificate.html#checkValidity--

CommunityUser · ‎04-16-2018

how to enable ssl in controller and java jboss agent . i have read the above link but can't get it as i write command in command prompt it shows cp is not recognized as internal and external command

my controller is in windows

CommunityUser · ‎06-06-2018

Hi,

we are using custom agent to change the date of the jvm and are getting errors on the agent even if we set this.

-Dappdynamics.force.default.ssl.certificate.validation=false

we are looking to use a reverse proxy between our agent and the controller but its not woking yet. Is there any way to skip this validation test?

Error log:

[Thread-7] 01 Mar 2018 15:54:17,355 ERROR ConfigurationChannel - Exception: java.security.cert.CertificateNotYetValidException: NotBefore: Thu Mar 29 20:00:00 EDT 2018
javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: java.security.cert.CertificateNotYetValidException: NotBefore: Thu Mar 29 20:00:00 EDT 2018
        at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:192)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1964)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:328)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:322)
        at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1614)
        at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.processMessage(ClientHandshaker.java:216)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.processLoop(Handshaker.java:1052)
        at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.process_record(Handshaker.java:987)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:1072)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.performInitialHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1385)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1413)
        at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1397)
        at com.singularity.ee.util.httpclient.c.createLayeredSocket(c.java:148)
        at com.singularity.ee.util.httpclient.c.connectSocket(c.java:193)
        at org.apache.http.impl.conn.HttpClientConnectionOperator.connect(HttpClientConnectionOperator.java:125)
        at org.apache.http.impl.conn.PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager.connect(PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager.java:319)
        at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.MainClientExec.establishRoute(MainClientExec.java:363)
        at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.MainClientExec.execute(MainClientExec.java:219)
        at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.ProtocolExec.execute(ProtocolExec.java:195)
        at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RetryExec.execute(RetryExec.java:86)
        at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RedirectExec.execute(RedirectExec.java:108)
        at org.apache.http.impl.client.InternalHttpClient.doExecute(InternalHttpClient.java:184)
        at org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient.execute(CloseableHttpClient.java:72)
        at com.singularity.ee.util.httpclient.n.a(n.java:290)
        at com.singularity.ee.util.httpclient.n.a(n.java:205)
        at com.singularity.ee.rest.f.G(f.java:384)
        at com.singularity.ee.rest.f.F(f.java:337)
        at com.singularity.ee.rest.controller.request.b.F(b.java:116)
        at com.singularity.ee.rest.controller.request.c.a(c.java:35)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.config.xml.m.a(m.java:1424)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.config.xml.m.a(m.java:117)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.config.xml.t.a(t.java:699)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.config.xml.m.a(m.java:478)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.config.xml.D.run(D.java:635)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.config.xml.e.initialize(e.java:300)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.m.start(m.java:146)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.JavaAgent.initialize(JavaAgent.java:511)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.kernel.JavaAgent.initialize(JavaAgent.java:308)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
        at com.singularity.ee.agent.appagent.AgentEntryPoint$1.run(AgentEntryPoint.java:647)
Caused by: java.security.cert.CertificateNotYetValidException: NotBefore: Thu Mar 29 20:00:00 EDT 2018
        at sun.security.x509.CertificateValidity.valid(CertificateValidity.java:270)
        at sun.security.x509.X509CertImpl.checkValidity(X509CertImpl.java:629)
        at sun.security.x509.X509CertImpl.checkValidity(X509CertImpl.java:602)
        at com.singularity.ee.util.httpclient.f.checkServerTrusted(f.java:243)
        at sun.security.ssl.AbstractTrustManagerWrapper.checkServerTrusted(SSLContextImpl.java:985)
        at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1596)
        ... 38 more

Saradhi_Pothara · ‎06-07-2018

Hi Philippe,

appdynamics.force.default.ssl.certificate.validation=false

This means that minimal certificate validation is done. Which means, that the notBefore and notAfter are still checked. If this property is set to true full certification chain validation is done.

So there is no way to fully disable the validation of notBefore and notAfter dates as that defies the purpose of SSL.

When this property is set to false, X509Certificate.checkValidity method is called, that would validate the certificate start and expiry dates.

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/security/cert/X509Certificate.html#checkValidity--

Either the cert needs to be corrected or you need to connect on non-SSL port.

I will ask the author of this article to explain the usage of this flag in full detail so that this confusion could be avoided further.

Regards,
Saradhi