SSL and RMI: Client hangs when trying to connect

Question

Hi all,
Sorry for the cross-posting (I first posted to the RMI forum) but I thought someone here might be able to shed some light. The original message follows.
I have a very simple client/server model implemented using RMI. Previously I used the default socket factories for creating sockets/connections and everything worked fine, but now I want to use SSL to encrypt all the traffic and I'm running into some trouble. The client is able to get the correct remote registry on the correct port, but when it tries to do registry.lookup("ServerName") to get a reference to the server object, it hangs indefinitely.
Briefly, here are the changes from default RMI:
As the docs suggested, I created a pair of custom socket factory classes (one for the client and one for the server) that create SSL sockets, and I put the following line in my server's constructor:
super(0, new CustomClientSocketFactory(), new CustomServerSocketFactory());
[my server extends UnicastRemoteObject].
The custom factories are quite simple; the client consists of:
public class CustomClientSocketFactory implements RMIClientSocketFactory, Serializable {
public Socket createSocket(final String iHost, final int iPort) throws IOException {
return SSLSocketFactory.getDefault().createSocket(iHost, iPort);
and the server:
public class CustomServerSocketFactory implements RMIServerSocketFactory {
public ServerSocket createServerSocket(final int iPort) throws IOException {
return SSLServerSocketFactory.getDefault().createServerSocket(iPort);
Everything else is the same as before. I start the server on the remote machine, which starts its own registry on a certain port; then I start the client on the local machine. The client gets the registry and then ... nothing happens.
I know this is somewhat vague, but the changes are small from the working code so I must be doing something wrong in creating SSL sockets. Is there something I can do to trace the process or figure out what's causing the hang? Am I missing some required authentication or other code in the server socket factory (my understanding from the docs is that authentication is optional)? Any other ideas about what's going on?
Thanks,
- Matt

Answer 1

Matt, did you ever determine anything about your Strange Behavior #2. I'm running int the exact same issue. We've been using JSSE without problem for more than 2 years now. I'm currently trying to connect to a new SSL server and the connections setup is taking about 4 minutes (not the SecureRandom seeding) (see my comment in the trace: "this is where it sits for about 3 minutes")
Trace:
init context
trigger seeding of SecureRandom
done seeding SecureRandom
%% No cached client session
*** ClientHello, v3.1
RandomCookie: GMT: 1005755098 bytes = { 7, 203, 184, 206, 249, 120, 35, 155, 160, 131, 72, 68, 12, 35, 64, 75, 63, 202, 161, 95, 42, 130, 74, 248, 145, 108, 49, 189 }
Session ID: {}
Cipher Suites: { 0, 5, 0, 4, 0, 9, 0, 10, 0, 18, 0, 19, 0, 3, 0, 17 }
Compression Methods: { 0 }
[write] MD5 and SHA1 hashes: len = 59
0000: 01 00 00 37 03 01 3C F3 9B DA 07 CB B8 CE F9 78 ...7..<........x
0010: 23 9B A0 83 48 44 0C 23 40 4B 3F CA A1 5F 2A 82 #...HD.#@K?.._*.
0020: 4A F8 91 6C 31 BD 00 00 10 00 05 00 04 00 09 00 J..l1...........
0030: 0A 00 12 00 13 00 03 00 11 01 00 ...........
SbATAOutAdapter, WRITE: SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 59
[write] MD5 and SHA1 hashes: len = 77
0000: 01 03 01 00 24 00 00 00 20 00 00 05 00 00 04 01 ....$... .......
0010: 00 80 00 00 09 06 00 40 00 00 0A 07 00 C0 00 00 .......@........
0020: 12 00 00 13 00 00 03 02 00 80 00 00 11 3C F3 9B .............<..
0030: DA 07 CB B8 CE F9 78 23 9B A0 83 48 44 0C 23 40 ......x#...HD.#@
0040: 4B 3F CA A1 5F 2A 82 4A F8 91 6C 31 BD K?.._*.J..l1.
SbATAOutAdapter, WRITE: SSL v2, contentType = 22, translated length = 16310
!!! This is where it sits for about 3 minutes !!!!
%% No cached client session
*** ClientHello, v3.1
RandomCookie: GMT: 1005755287 bytes = { 8, 151, 45, 75, 86, 164, 141, 52, 216, 145, 81, 24, 157, 215, 246, 206, 87, 83, 153, 41, 88, 38, 3, 119, 190, 13, 0, 28 }
Session ID: {}
Cipher Suites: { 0, 5, 0, 4, 0, 9, 0, 10, 0, 18, 0, 19, 0, 3, 0, 17 }
Compression Methods: { 0 }
[write] MD5 and SHA1 hashes: len = 59
0000: 01 00 00 37 03 01 3C F3 9C 97 08 97 2D 4B 56 A4 ...7..<.....-KV.
0010: 8D 34 D8 91 51 18 9D D7 F6 CE 57 53 99 29 58 26 .4..Q.....WS.)X&
0020: 03 77 BE 0D 00 1C 00 00 10 00 05 00 04 00 09 00 .w..............
0030: 0A 00 12 00 13 00 03 00 11 01 00 ...........
SbATAOutAdapter, WRITE: SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 59
[write] MD5 and SHA1 hashes: len = 77
0000: 01 03 01 00 24 00 00 00 20 00 00 05 00 00 04 01 ....$... .......
0010: 00 80 00 00 09 06 00 40 00 00 0A 07 00 C0 00 00 .......@........
0020: 12 00 00 13 00 00 03 02 00 80 00 00 11 3C F3 9C .............<..
0030: 97 08 97 2D 4B 56 A4 8D 34 D8 91 51 18 9D D7 F6 ...-KV..4..Q....
0040: CE 57 53 99 29 58 26 03 77 BE 0D 00 1C .WS.)X&.w....
SbATAOutAdapter, WRITE: SSL v2, contentType = 22, translated length = 16310
SbATAOutAdapter, READ: SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 74
*** ServerHello, v3.1
RandomCookie: GMT: 1005755466 bytes = { 145, 7, 69, 98, 152, 52, 222, 159, 96, 162, 220, 85, 77, 107, 82, 203, 25, 94, 208, 124, 2, 245, 96, 208, 224, 254, 139, 206 }
Session ID: {68, 7, 167, 168, 236, 202, 48, 147, 191, 204, 208, 122, 24, 43, 132, 50, 65, 220, 172, 189, 17, 18, 197, 11, 150, 59, 201, 103, 86, 176, 115, 68}
Cipher Suite: { 0, 5 }
Compression Method: 0
%% Created: [Session-1, SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA]
** SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks,
Marcel